DESPOTISM IN AMERICA; 



AN INQUIRY INTO THE NATURE AND 
RESULTS 



SLAVE-HOLDING SYSTEM 



IN THE UNITED STATES. 






BY THE AUTHOR OF "ARCHY MOORE. 



BOSTON: 

WHIPPLE AND DAMRELL 

1840. 



Entered according to act of Congress, in the year 1840, 
BY RICHARD HILDRETH, 

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of Massachusetts. 



STEREOTYPED BY GEO. A. AND J. CURTIS, 
NEW-ENGLAND TYPE AND STEREOTYPE FOUNDRY. 



" The impression which has gone abroad of the weakness 
of the South, as connected with the slave-question, exposes 
us to such constant attacks, has done us so much injury, 
and is calculated to produce such infinite mischiefs, that I 
embrace the occasion presented by the remarks of the gen- 
tleman from Massachusetts, to declare that ive are ready to 
meet the guestio?i proinptly and fearlessly. It is one from 
which we are not disposed to shrink, m whatever form, or 

UNDER WHATEVER CIRCUMSTANCES IT MAY BE PRESSED UPON 

US. We are ready to make xtp the issue as to the influence 
of slavery on individual and national character — on the 
prosperity arid greatness either of the United States, or 
particular States. Sir, when arraigned at the bar of pub- 
lic opinion, on this charge of slavery, we can stand up with 
conscious rectitude, plead not guilty, and put ourselves 
upon God and our country." — Speech of Robert Y. 
Hayne, of South Carolina, in reply to Mr. Webster, deliv- 
ered in the Senate of the United States, Jan. 21, 1S30. 



CONTENTS. 



Page. 

INTRODUCTION 7 

CHAPTER FIRST. 

THE RELATION OF MASTER AND SLAVE. 

Sect. I. — Origin of Slavery 35 

Sect. II. — General idea of a Slave-holding Commu- 
nity 36 

Sect. III. — Empire claimed by the American Slave 
Master 38 

Sect. IV. — Means of enforcing the Master's Empire . 41 

Sect. V. — Methods of resistance on the part of the 
Slaves 48 

Sect. VI. — The treatment of American Slaves con- 
sidered as animals 56 

Sect. VII. — The treatment of American Slaves con- 
sidered as men 62 

Sect. VIII. — Wealth and luxury of the Masters, as it 
affects the condition of Slaves 74 

Sect. IX. — Improvement in physical condition, as it 
affects the condition of servitude 77 

CHAPTER SECOND. 
POLITICAL RESULTS OF THE SLAVE-HOLDING SYSTEM. 

Sect. I. — General view of the subject 83 

Sect. II. — Slavery as it affects the security of the 

privileged class 86 

1* 



VI CONTENTS. 

Sect. III. — Slavery as it affects the liberty of the pri- 
vileged class 9" 

Sect. IV. — Slavery in its influence upon Equality . 96 
Sect. V. — Education in the Slave-holding States . 104 
Sect. VI. — Military strength of the Slave-holding 
States 107 

CHAPTER THIRD. 

ECONOMICAL RESULTS OF THE SLAVE-HOLDING SYSTEM. 

Sect. I. — Effect of Slavery upon the Sources of 
Wealth Ill 

Sect. II. — Slavery as it affects the amount of capital 
required for industrious undertakings . . . . 119 

Sect. III. — Agriculture in the Slave-holding States 123 

Sect. IV. — Manufactures and Commerce in the Slave- 
holding States 132 

Sect. V. — Instability and uncertainty of values in the 
Slave-holding States 134 

Sect. VI. — Comparative Progress and Prosperity of 
the Free and of the Slave-holding States . . . 138 

CHAPTER FOURTH. 

PERSONAL RESULTS OF THE SLAVE-HOLDING SYSTEM. 

Sect. I. — Personal effects of Slavery upon the privi- 
leged class 142 

Sect. II. — Personal effects of Slavery upon the unpri- 
vileged class 157 

Sect. III. — Points of diversity in the personal char- 
acter of the privileged and the unprivileged classes 164 

CONCLUSION 169 



INTRODUCTION 



It has been said, and is often repeated, that the 
United States of America are trying a great social ex- 
periment, upon the result of which hangs the future 
fate not of America only, but to a certain extent, of 
all mankind. 

The consequences likely to flow from the success or 
failure of this experiment, are doubtless exaggerated ; 
for those universal laws which regulate the feelings 
and the actions of men, will ultimately produce their 
necessary effects, in spite of narrow systems of policy 
and morals, founded upon the success or failure of 
any single experiment. 

But whatever we may think of its probable conse- 
quences, however fancy may magnify, or reason may 
diminish them, the experiment itself, is a great one. 
It is in fact far more complicated and more critical, and 
therefore greater and more interesting, than it is com- 
monly represented. 

The American experiment is usually described, as 
purely an experiment of democracy ; an attempt to 
establish a perfect equality of political rights; an es- 
say towards the equal distribution among all the 
members of the community, of freedom, property, 
knowledge, social advantages, and those other good 
things which make up the mass of human happiness. 
And this experiment — as we are assured by every 
writer, native, or foreign, who has touched upon the 
subject, owing to the peculiar circumstances of the 
country, is carried on to the greatest possible advan- 



8 DESPOTISM 

tage, not, being compelled to encounter a multitude of 
hostile influences, by which such an undertaking, any- 
where else, would be most vigorously opposed. 

This is not a true representation of the case. If in 
certain parts of the American Union, the experiment 
of Democracy be steadily and quietly pursued, and 
with an influence and a feeling in its favor which have 
at length become predominant, in certain other parts of 
the country, it is quite overshadowed, and is reduced 
to creep pale and sickly on the ground, by another ex- 
periment, less talked about, less celebrated, but not 
the less real or important, to wit, the experiment of 
Despotism. 

The Northern States of the Union are unquestion- 
able Democracies, and every day they are verging 
nearer and nearer towards the simple idea and theo- 
retic perfection of that form of government. The 
Southern States of the Union, though certain demo- 
cratic principles are to be found in their constitutions 
and their laws, are in no modern sense of the word 
entitled to the appellation of Democracies : They are 
Aristocracies ; and aristocracies of the sternest and 
most odious kind. Property, and all the rights, ad- 
vantages and enjoyments which the laws bestow, are 
limited to certain families and their descendants. Cer- 
tain other families and their otfspring, to the latest 
generation, are not only deprived of all political priv- 
ileges and social advantages, but they are the hered- 
itary subjects, servants, bondsmen of the privileged 
class. Every man of the privileged order who is pos- 
sessed of any property at all, is apt to own at least 
one slave ; if he is rich, he may own a thousand ; but 
whether one or a thousand, of those he does own, the 
laws create him with but a single slight, and in fact 
merely nominal exception, the absolute master, lord 
and despot. In their relation towards each other, the 
members of the privileged class are nominally equal ; 
and in that aspect, it may happen that the lord of a 
plantation and five hundred slaves, shall be a great 
stickler for liberty and equality. But the liberty and 



IN AMERICA. 9 

equality for which he contends, is wholly confined to 
the privileged order ; and the total subjection and 
eternal servitude of the unprivileged class, is consid- 
ered a matter of course, a first principle, a fixed and 
established ordinance, as inevitable and as incapable 
of alteration, as the laws of nature. 

It is evident then, how complicated is the American 
experiment. If the democratical part of it, has hith- 
erto been pursued in silence and quiet, and with such 
apparent success, that the admirers of Democracy 
have been ready to cry out, that the problem is already 
solved ; — that quiet and silence have been merely ac- 
cidental ; that success has been only a progress which 
was comparatively speaking, but slightly opposed; 
and it is but now that Democracy and Despotism face 
to face, like Gabriel and the Arch-enemy, make ready 
for a desperate and dreadful struggle. The prepara- 
tion, the courage, the arms, the loftiness of soul were 
not on the part of the " angelic squadron" alone : — 

On t' other side, Satan alarm'd 

Collecting all his might, dilated stood 
Like Teneriffe, or Atlas, unremoved 
His stature reached the sky, and on his crest 
Sat horror plum' d ; nor wanted in his grasp 
What seemed both spear and shield. — 

The struggle that impends is of a nature to shake 
the country to the centre, and to end, if we believe 
the prophecies of our southern friends, in civil com- 
motions, infuriated hostilities, and savage war. 

So ii may be. The event is in their power. Let 
them be wise in time. The balance of justice is 
stretched across the sky, — and is it not their scale that 
kicks the beam 7 Let them look up and read their lot 
in that celestial sign, and know themselves, how light, 
how weak, if they resist. Even the arch-fiend cared 
not to struggle against inevitable fate, and fled a strife 
in which he could but suffer. 

That heterogeneous mixture of aristocracies and 



10 DESPOTISM 

democracies, which makes up the American Union ; 
that strange compound of liberty and despotism, which 
pervades the laws of so many of the States, and lurks 
demurely, in the federal constitution ; such hostile and 
repulsive elements having been so long quietly in con- 
tact without producing an explosion, it has thence 
been argued, and believed, that they might always re- 
main so. But those who reason thus, have not well 
considered the history of t?ie American States, nor the 
kind of progress which Democracy has hitherto made. 

The dispute which severed the colonies from Great 
Britain, gave rise to constitutions in the northern 
States of the confederacy, which acknowledged to a 
greater or less degree, the leading principles of liberty 
and equality ; principles which before hardly had an 
existence, except in the speculations of a few political 
theorists. In no part of the country, were the funda- 
mental theorems of this modern system of policy, more 
generally received or more warmly maintained, than 
in the New England States, where the equal distribu- 
tion of property seemed to open the way for the easy 
introduction of a purely democratical system. 

But property is not the only source of political pow- 
er. From the earliest settlement of those States, the 
Clergy had always exercised a predominant influence. 
They formed a distinct order, acting together with 
decision and promptitude, and monopolizing all the 
learning and no small share of the active talent of the 
community. The mass of the people, though all could 
read, — an inestimable accomplishment, and under fa- 
vorable circumstances, capable in itself of becoming 
the foundation of the most liberal knowledge, — were 
yet extremely ignorant ; for they had no book but the 
bible, and for the most part they relied upon their re- 
ligious teachers with a submissive and superstitious 
dependance, for such expositions of its contents as they 
saw fit to give. In this state of the case, the power 
which the clergy exercised was very great. It was 
however for the most part a moral power, a power not 
over the bodies, but over the minds of men, and of 



IN AMERICA. 11 

course, it was least felt by those who yielded to it the 
most implicit submissian. Some harsh acts of perse- 
cution and punishment, were occasionally dealt out to 
such insubordinate persons, as were bold enough to 
think for themselves, or to cpiestion the infallible and 
divine authority of the "standing order." But in 
general, that veneration which the " ministers" claim- 
ed, was spontaneously yielded, and the power thus 
conferred was judiciously fortified by being shared 
with such of the laymen as most excelled in shrewd- 
ness, ambition, and spiritual gifts. 

The Revolution, and those questions of constitu- 
tional law to which it gave rise, and more yet, those 
extensive and iniquitous fluctuations of property which 
the paper money system produced, raised into conse- 
quence another body of men, superior to the clergy in 
active talent ; almost their equals in learning ; and if 
they were not regarded with the same affectionate 
awe, yet both feared and respected by the people. 
These were the Lawyers. 

This new order did not hazard its influence nor 
waste its strength in a struggle for power, with the 
clergy. On the contrary, the clergy and the lawyers 
soon formed an intimate union ; and though these lat- 
ter were sometimes a little wanting in respect for the 
theological dogmas, and the austere morality of their 
allies, these deficiencies of faith and practice were 
more than made up for, by the zeal and subtlety 
with which they defended the legal privileges of the 
clergy, and labored to uphold their influence and au- 
thority. 

This double hierarchy of law and divinity, long 
maintained a predominating influence over the yeo- 
manry of New England. Bred up on their farms in 
the simplest way, and with a deep reverence for reh- 
gion and the law, a reverence easily and naturally 
transferred to the clergy and the lawyers ; depending 
upon the pulpit for their weekly supply of knowledge 
and opinions, or if they read a newspaper, — and 
American newspapers in those times were but small 



12 DESPOTISM 

affairs — choosing such an one as the minister recom- 
mended ; the Legislature filled with lawyers, whose 
superior information, eloquence and adroitness, put 
every thing in their power ; the judges, secure in the 
tenure of their office, and the profound respect with 
which it was regarded, contributing by their decisions, 
to uphold a system of which they formed a part ; 
thus beset, hemmed in, controlled and over-awed, all 
the weaker spirits and more submissive tempers, that 
is to say, the mass of the community, cowered and 
submitted to a power, so boldly claimed, so vigorously 
enforced, and exercised on the part of those who held 
it, with a serious and sincere belief that superior 
knowledge, virtue and capacity, justly entitled them 
to pre-eminent authority. 

But notwithstanding this moral oligarchy to which 
New England was subjected, the spirit of democracy 
had nestled in the bosoms of her people ; and cherished 
by degrees into energy and strength, it presently be- 
gan to plume its wings, and to make ready for assert- 
ing its just dominion. 

The history of the contest in New England, be- 
tween Democracy on the one hand, and the priestly 
and legal alliance on the other, has never yet been 
written. It is not adorned with any of those palpable 
acts, those scenes of devastation and slaughter, which 
have hitherto formed the chief topics of historic nar- 
ration ; and though a most violent and bitter struggle, 
so little has it attracted the attention of political wri- 
ters, that the progress of American Democracy, thus 
far, has been generally described as quiet, silent and 
almost unresisted. 

To one, who from the the array of the combatants, 
had divined the probable termination of the conflict, 
the speedy discomfiture of the democratical party 
would have appeared inevitable. Behind the legal 
and clerical champions who proudly led the van of the 
opposing forces, there followed a goodly host, including 
by far the most respectable, and apparently the most 
worthy portions of society. The wealthy, almost to 



IN AMERICA. 13 

a man, enlisted in behalf of the estabhshed order of 
things, which having made them rich, in their estima- 
tion, could not but be good. Besides, their wealth 
enabled them to purchase by gifts to pious uses, and 
without any special personal merit, high seats in the 
synagogue ; and sufficed to enrol them in the list of 
"gentlemen," with whom the ministers and the lawyers 
were accustomed to share their authority. Next fol- 
lowed the great mass of the religiously disposed ; for 
it requires an unusual degree of discernment and de- 
cision, to escape from the influences of education and 
habit, and to distinguish between a reverence for reli- 
gion, and a blind submission to spiritual guides. The 
literature of the country, such as it was, naturally 
appeared on the side of those who were its principal 
patrons ; and crowding in the rear, came the young 
talent and ambition of the times, anxious to sus- 
tain a system, which seemed to otfer a rightful pre- 
eminence to talent, and to ambition a station above 
the vulgar level. 

The array upon the other side, was contemptible 
in comparison. Some leaders there were, " sons of 
liberty," who had been nursed in the cradle of the 
revolution, whose character, whose honor, whose pat- 
riotism was unquestionable, and upon whose clear 
reputation not all the outrageous calumny of their op- 
ponents could fix the shadow of a stain. And there 
were some followers too, who seemed to love democra- 
cy for itself; men enamoured of the idea of equality, 
who sought no private advantage, but only the public 
good. But these, whether leaders or followers, were 
comparatively few. The mass of the party seemed 
made up like the band of David, when he rose in rebel- 
lion against the Lord's anointed ; — all who were in 
debt, all who were in distress, all who were discon- 
tented, enlisted beneath this banner ; and to believe 
the account of their opponents, not the tatterdemalions 
of Falstaif's enlistment were more idle, vicious, dis- 
honest and dangerous. 

The truth is, that so stern, severe, active and influ- 
2 



14 DESPOTISM 

ential, was the authority which the aUied hierarchy- 
exercised, that few men who had property, standing, 
character, friends, to lose, cared to risk the consequen- 
ces of those bulls of excommunication which were 
fulminated from the pulpit and the press, and those 
torrents of calumny, denunciation, and abuse, poured 
forth by a thousand fluent tongues, against whomso- 
ever deserted the ark of the covenant, and allied him- 
self to the uncircumcised Philistines. 

The democratic party were not wanting in efforts 
to enhst the powerful aid of religion upon their side. 
They made friends with the Baptists and other dis- 
senters from the established creed, who cherished an 
hereditary hatred toward the congregational priest- 
hood, and who were struggling to escape from the le- 
gal disabilities with which tlieir heresies still continued 
to be visited. These clerical allies, in imitation of 
their opponents, mingled religion with politics, and 
sought to turn the excited feelings of their hearers, 
into political channels. They were denounced by the 
regular order, as hedge-priests, sectarians, wild enthu- 
siasts, puffed up with a ridiculous over-estimate of 
their spiritual endowments, ignorant, turbulent, bad 
men, who in attempting to overturn the platform on 
which was raised the sober edifice of congregational - 
ism, sought to destroy the foundations of society, and 
to mix up all things in chaotic confusion. 

In this situation of affairs, democratical principles 
were still enabled to gain the ascendency in New Eng- 
land, and to become the prevailing creed, by the joint 
effect of two separate causes, each of which was per- 
haps potent enough in itself to have ensured the vic- 
tory. 

Though the professors of these principles were pro- 
scribed by the New England oligarchy, declared desti- 
tute of any claims to attention or indulgence, represented 
as wild political fanatics, the disciples of Robespierre, 
desirous to abolish religion, and to root up morals, to 
destroy the natural instmcts of humanity, and to sprin- 
kle the land with fire and blood; they found encourage- 



IN AMERICA. 15 

I 

ment, support and aid, where there was the least rea- 
son to expect it, to wit, at the hands of the southern 
slave-holders. Who could, have anticipated that the 
apostle of American democracy should himself have 
been an aristocrat and a despot ! Yet so it was. .Teffer- 
son, is revered, and justly, as the earliest, ablest, boldest 
and most far-going of those who became the expounders 
and advocates of the democratical system in America. 
Most of the others, whether leaders or followers, 
seemed driven on by a blind instinct. They felt, but 
did not reason. Jefferson based his political opinions 
upon general principles of human nature. Men were 
supposed, in other systems of politics, to be helpless, 
blind, incapable children, unfit to take care of them- 
selves, and certain, if the experiment were tried, to do 
themselves presently some dreadful and irreparable 
harm. .Tefferson argued, that however weak and blind 
men might be, yet their own strength and eye-sight 
were still their surest hope, and best dependance. If 
aid were elsewhere sought, whence could it come? 
These guides, these guardians, these governors, who 
are they 7 Are they not men, weak and blind 7 Worse 
yet, men ready to betray the confidence placed in them, 
and under pretence of protection, themselves to plun- 
der and oppress 7 It is therefore better to make each 
man, blind and weak though he be, the chief guardian 
of his own welfare. Subject no man to the arbitrary 
control of another, who if he may be wiser and bet- 
ter, may just as likely, be blinder and be worse. Snch 
necessary rules of social conduct as the judgment of 
the majority shall approve, let them be laws, so long 
as that judgment continues to approve them ; and let 
the laws govern, and the laws alone. 

Such was the political creed of Jeflerson. It is the 
creed of democracy ; and he espoused it with a warm, 
an active, almost a fanatic zeal. The perfect political 
equality of all men ; the absolute right of every man 
to be guided by his own pleasure and judgment, so 
long as he transgresses no law, and his equal claim to 
a fair participation in the enactment and repeal of 



16 DESPOTISM 

every law ; these were the very fundamental principles 
of this political system. Yet Jefferson remained all 
his life the tyrant of a plantation, in the enforcement 
of an usurped authority, either personally, or by his 
delegate, which he himself describes, as " a perpetual 
exercise of the most boisterous passions, — the most 
unremitting despotism on the one part, and degrading 
submission on the other." Ah Truth ! 'Tis thee 
alone that men should reverence ! Do they reverence 
men, it is an idolatry as base as if they bowed to stocks 
and stones. Men are blind and weak, the wisest and 
the best ! But Truth, — it is unblemished, in itself 
complete, divine, pure, perfect! 

Had Jefferson attempted to preach the full extent of 
his doctrines in his native state, he would doubtless 
have drawn down upon his head a storm of hatred and 
reproach, not rashly to have been encountered, nor eas- 
ily to have been withstood. But that was an adven- 
ture of difficulty and peril, which he felt no call to 
undertake. Like Henry and Washington, and those 
other great men whose devoted patriotism and many 
virtues would make us willingly forget that on their 
own estates they were tyrants, — though he acknowl- 
edged the trampled rights and crying wrongs of the 
disenfranchised half of his fellow countrymen, he yet 
despaired to make any impression upon the ignorance, 
the prejudices, the blind and narrow self-interest of 
the privileged class, and he contented himself with 
now and then a protest against a sj^stem of tyrannical 
usurpation, which carried away by custom and con- 
venience, he still continued to uphold through the sup- 
port of his own example. 

The democracy which he preached at home, was 
democracy among the aristocrats; — and the perfect 
equality of all the members of the privileged order, has 
ever been a popular doctrine in all aristocracies. The 
" love of liberty" is a phrase under which are includ- 
ed two feelings of a very distinct, and sometimes of 
an opposite kind. Each individual is always the ar- 
dent and zealous champion of his own liberty, be- 



IN AMERICA. 17 

cause the hatred of all extraneous control, the desire 
to be solely governed by the free impulses of his own 
mind, is a part of the constitution of human nature 
too essential ever lo be wanting. Hence it is that we 
find kings and emperors among the champions of lib- 
erty and equal rights, by which they understand, the 
liberty of governing their own realms without foreign 
control, and the absolute equality of all crowned 
heads. Have we not seen the Austrian and Russian 
despots, leaguing with the king of Prussia and the 
haughty aristocracy of England to vindicate the liber- 
ties of Europe against the usurpation and tyrannies of 
a Bonaparte ? When the chains threatened to bind 
them., when they were like to be compelled to bow 
their necks beneath the yoke of a master, who more 
sensitive than they to the degradations of servitude 7 
Who more zealous, more earnest, more sincere in lib- 
erty's cause 7 Alexander of Russia turned a dema- 
gogue, and the princes of Germany harangued their 
subjects, not in the dry and austere style of absolute 
authority, but with the supplicating tone, the humble 
and insinuating eloquence, the flattery and fair prom- 
ises, with which ambitious men, in popular states, seek 
to inveigle the popular favor. 

This passion for personal liberty burns fiercely in 
the soul of every human being, and no where fiercer 
than in the hearts of an aristocracy bred to its posses- 
sion, and who have learned to estimate its value by 
having constantly before their eyes the terrible con- 
trast of servitude. 

But the "love of liberty" has also another mean- 
ing. It describes a passion not for individual freedom, 
but for the freedom of all men ; a wide, expansive 
feeling, the offspring of benevolence, the height of phi- 
lanthropy, the extension to others of that which we 
find best and most desirable for ourselves ; its exten- 
sion not only to those to whom we are bound by fa- 
miliar ties of interest and sympathy, our friends and 
kindred, or those whom however otherwise uncon- 
nected with us, we still assimilate to ourselves by 
2* 



18 DESPOTISM 

some real or fanciful analogies ; but absolutely, its ex- 
tension to all men, — the love of freedom wherever, by 
whomsoever, exercised, as an abstract good. 

It is evident that the love of liberty in this high 
sense, can shine out in perfection only from hearts the 
warmest, souls the most cultivated, minds the most 
lofty, unclouded and serene. But fragments of it, 
sparks from this celestial flame, sometimes but dim, 
the smallest atom almost, and that too buried, and quite 
smothered amid the ashes of selfish passions, — yet 
dim or bright, smothered or burning clear, this passion 
for universal freedom is still a part of human nature, 
but a part of it which lies dead and dark in unculti- 
vated souls, and which only begins to kindle and to 
blaze, in the forward and quick feeling minds of a pol- 
ished and reflecting age. 

To this latter feeling, noble and refined, and which 
lurks, however invisible, even in the hearts of a slave- 
holding aristocracy, Jefferson did not dare to appeal. 
He was content to act the humble and comparatively 
inconsiderable part of a champion for equality among 
the aristocrats ; and laboring to forget that the unpriv- 
ileged class — some of whom, to believe the voice of 
common report, were his own children, — had any 
greater capacities or rights than beasts of burden, he 
curtailed the expansive and universal clauses of his 
political creed, till the mantle of liberty which should 
have extended its protection to every citizen, embraced 
within its torn and mutilated folds only the privileged 
order. 

The oligarchical party in the southern aristocracies, 
the aristocracy, so to speak, of the privileged order, 
though they were richer and better educated than their 
neighbors of the common sort, had no such moral hold 
upon men's minds as the hierarchy of the north. The 
prejudices in favor of family and rank to which they 
were indebted for the general acknowledgment of 
their superiority, had been shaken by the revolution, 
and after a short and ineffectual resistance, the oli- 
garchical party in Virginia and the Carolinas was 



IN AMERICA. 19 

completely broken down hy the vigorous assault which 
the Jeftersonians made upon them. Henceforward the 
most complete and democratical equality among all the 
members of the privileged class, became the settled 
and established creed of southern politics. But the 
JefFersonian party, while it aimed at overturning the 
oligarchies of the southern states, aimed also at supre- 
macy in the federal government ; and the same victory 
which assured their ascendency at home, raised their 
leader to the presidential chair. 

From that elevation, .TerFerson stretched forth a help- 
ing hand to the struggling democrats of New Eng- 
land ; and by means of the honors and offices within 
his gift, he enlisted into their cause divers mercenaries 
of courage and ability, who were seduced from the 
ranks of the hierarchy, and having taken pay at the 
hands of democracy, fought valiantly in her cause. 

As the Jeftersonians continued for twenty-four years 
at the head of the federal government, and during all 
that time, consoled, comforted, aided and abetted the 
democrats of New England, the party began presently 
to grow somewhat more respectable ; and as the ad- 
vantages to be derived from belonging to it, became 
more and more numerous, converts were multiplied, 
and presently there might be numbered among them 
even some of the clergy and the lav/yers. 

It is evident that this process alone would at length 
have given to democratical principles a nominal, if not 
a practical ascendency. But as I have mentioned, 
there was another cause in operation, in itself suffi- 
cient to have ensured an ultimate, and a more sub- 
stantial triumph. Notwithstanding the grand array 
of followers mustered by the hierarchy, there were 
many among them who at heart Avere traitors to the 
cause. Tliey had been bred up in a horror of dem.o- 
cracy, which they were taught to regard as the con- 
centration of all possible evil, and to the repetition of 
certain dogmas containing the substance of the oligar- 
chical creed. Yet insensibly they became democrats 
themselves ; and the superior order, to maintain its 



20 DESPOTISM 

influence and preserve its ascendency, was soon oblig- 
ed to descend to all those arts of popularity, which 
when practised by their opponents, they had denounc- 
ed as fit only for demagogues. 

The power of the priestly and legal hierarchy consist- 
ed in their monopoly of talent and education, and in a 
certain superstitions reverence with which they were 
regarded by the people. So long as these two sources 
of power continued in full operation, their credit could 
not be shaken, and their influence carried every thing 
before it. But with the progress of time, and the in- 
creasing wealth of the community, education became 
more general, books and periodicals were multiplied, 
and knowledge was disseminated. The oligarchical 
order lost their superiority in this respect, and with it, 
they lost the awe and veneration of the people. To 
complete their discomfiture, they quarrelled among 
themselves on certain points of theology ; and as the 
dispute waxed warm, the parties to it became more in- 
tent upon destroying each other's influence, than upon 
maintaiuing their own. 

Such was the end of the oligarchical rule in New 
England, of which some vestiges yet remain, but of 
which the life and spirit has departed. The political 
creed, generally and it may be said, universally, pro- 
fessed, — albeit the ancient regime has still many se- 
cret adherents, — is a purely democratic creed, and the 
struggle for influence and office between contending 
politicians, turns wholly upon the question, who among 
them are the best democrats, who are most devoted to 
the interests of the people 7 

Though the New England States formed that part 
of the Union which held out longest against the general 
reception of the democratic theory, yet the equal distri- 
bution of property, the more extensive diffusion of 
knowledge, and that feeling of personal independence 
and equality long cherished among tlie people, made 
them from the beginning, the best adapted of all the 
states, to enter fully into the spirit of democracy, and to 
display, in the most striking light, the advantages of 



IN AMERICA. 21 

that form of government. Accordingly it may be said 
that tlie New England States, notwithstanding .some 
gross defects in their political and social system, afford, 
at this moment, the most remarkable approach any 
where to be found, toward the theoretical perfection of 
ideal democracy. 

But it was not in New England alone, that the pro- 
gress of the democratical experiment met with opposi- 
tion. The middle states — New York, New .Jersey and 
Pennsylvania. — at the era of the revolution, contained 
an oligarchy of rich land-holders, who assumed, and 
for some time retained, the exclusive political control 
of their respective communities. To this landed aris- 
tocracy the lawyers joined themselves, as also the cler- 
gy, whose influence though by no means equal to that 
of their brethren in New England, was far from con- 
temptible. The yeomanry of those states were in 
general, rude and ignorant. As there was no system 
of public schools, many of them were unable to read ; 
and if they were free from some of the prejudices of 
the New Englanders, they were far behind them, in 
knowledge, industry, self-respect, and that sensibility 
of mind and heart, which civilization produces. 

If the members of the oligarchical party in these 
states, could have agreed among themselves, they might 
long have maintained their influence and authority. 
But presently they quarrelled, and divided into hostile 
and bitter factions. Certain persons among them, 
whether to secure the popular favor by putting them- 
selves forward as the champions of popular rights, or 
some of them perhaps, sincere converts to the creed, 
soon declared themselves the patrons and champions 
of democracy ; but as they had a powerful resistance 
to contend against at home, and opponents who, though 
discomfited, still kept the field, they were fain to yield 
the precedence to Jefferson and his southern supporters, 
and to be content with the second part, where they 
would gladly have claimed the first. 

As to the states north-west of the Ohio, which are 
now beginning to occupy so conspicuous a place in the 



22 DESPOTISM 

Union, their origin is so recent, and their population 
has hitherto been so much engrossed with the cares 
and occupations incident to new settlements, that as 
yet, they have exercised but a limited influence upon 
the sentiment and opinions of the country. That in- 
fluence however has been almost purely democratic, 
and from the very birth of those communities, democ- 
racy has always been their prevailing political creed. 
These slight and imperfect historical sketches lead 
us to a fact of the greatest importance towards a cor- 
rect understanding of the progress, present state, and 
future prospects of political opinion and political action, 
in America, Ever since the formation of the federal 
constitution, down almost to the present moment, 
strange as it may seem, the democratic party of the 
Union has been headed, guided, governed and con- 
trolled by certain slave-holding aristocrats of the south; 
— Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, and Jackson have been 
successively, its leaders, and its idols. 

Under Jefferson, theoretical democracy was a new 
thing; and it was embraced with all the warmth which 
novelty is apt to inspire. It formed a principal topic 
of public discussion ; and was defended, if not always 
by sound reasonings and substantial arguments, yet 
with the enthusiastic zeal of sincere conviction. 

But presently the public attention was diverted into 
other channels, and became engrossed by matters 
with which democracy had little or no connection. 
Under Madison, the great question was, whether the 
United States should resent and repel the insults and 
the wrongs heaped upon them by foreign powers, and 
if so, whether they should make war against the 
tyrant Bonaparte, or the English aristocracy. The 
democratic party was in general favorable to Bona- 
parte, for he was the child, and he had declared him- 
self the heir, and had seized upon the inheritance of 
the French Revolution. But the very fact that they 
were led by irrational sympathies, and the ardor of 
political controversy, to wink at, to apologize for, and 
almost to defend, the violence and outrages of a mili- 



IN AMERICA. 23 

tary usurper, was so contrary to their principles, and 
produced such a confusion of ideas, that the great 
doctrines of their creed dropped almost out of sight, 
and whether or not one was favorable to a war with 
Great Britain, presently became the test of political 
orthodoxy, — a test altogether aside from the funda- 
mental principles of the democratical system. 

Under Monroe, the great confroversies of the day, 
respected the protection of American industry ; a pure 
question of national economy, upon which people 
took sides, for the most part, not according to their 
political opinions, but according to the views they en- 
tertained of the effect which this protection Avould be 
likely to have upon their own private pecuniary in- 
terests. 

During the administrations of Madison and Mon- 
roe though the democratic creed was predominant 
throughout the greater part of the country, and 
though during the interval, it achieved its final tri- 
umph in New England, yet beginning in those states 
where it had earliest prevailed, and extending gradual- 
ly to the rest, it degenerated almost into a mere form 
of words without force or vitality. 

This state of things is easily explained. The 
leaders of the democratic, as of all other political par- 
ties, were for the most part adventurers, — mere sol- 
diers of fortune, who sought credit, honors, office, and 
power, by the zealous advocacy of principles which 
they saw to have many adherents, but for which they 
themselves felt no very devoted love, apart from the 
advancement to which they hoped these principles 
might help them. That advancement attained, the 
party triumphant, themselves in office, they looked 
with feelings of contempt upon the ladder by which 
they had ascended, they were even desirous to cast it 
down, lest perchance stronger men might climb up 
thereby, and thrust them from their places. 

The mouths of the prophets being closed, the peo- 
ple wandered as sheep without a shepherd ; and 
though the democratic creed was publicly professed 



24 DESPOTISM 

by all, there lurked in the hearts of many a cold in- 
difierence, a sneermg scepticism, a silent disbelief. 

With Monroe terminated the direct line of the Jef- 
fersonian succession; and then began that struggle 
for the possession of the presidential chair, which has 
been so earnestly kept up for the last twelve or four- 
teen years. No one has had a larger share in that con- 
test, than John C. Calhoun, a person likely to figure 
in history, for the instruction and amusement of man- 
kind. 

That able, but restless and unprincipled man, first 
came into public life as a leading democrat ; but that 
was at a time when democracy in its current sense, 
meant little more than hostility to Great Britain. 
Coming from South Carolina as he did, it was but 
natural that he should be, as he was, a thorough 
aristocrat; and that not content with the mere supre- 
macy of one race over another, he desu'ed to concen- 
trate all political power into the hands of a chosen 
few, of whom he himself should be the chief and 
leader. 

But satisfied by the result of his earlier experi- 
ments, that the aristocratical party was not strong 
enough to bestow that power at which he aimed, and 
that even if it were, he would encounter on that side, 
some dangerous competitors ; he turned short about, 
and recollecting the success of Jefferson, resolved to 
try a new means of advancement, and to summon 
up, from the slumbers of some sixteen years, the 
genius of Democracy, which he fondly hoped to be 
able to convert into the mere servant of his political 
schemes. 

The magician was able, and the charm worked 
well. Dimly in the distance, hazy and indistinct, ap- 
peared a figure, whose broad proportions told that 
time and slumber had but increased its stature and 
its power. One foot upon the western prairies, the 
other amid the snowy hills of New England, it strode 
across the land. The people saw and worshipped. 
A new enthusiasm was kindled in their hearts. No- 



IN AMERICA. 25 

thing could resist it. Those who put themselves 
forward as the priests, the favored, the chosen of this 
new avatar of democratical reform, Avere received 
with confidence, welcomed with acclamation, and en- 
trusted with power. So far the thing worked well, 
and he who had called up this apparition of democra- 
cy, succeeded in installing, as its high-priest and 
chosen minister, a man who had been a slave-trader, 
a man who was a slave-holder, who preached liberty 
and equality at Washington, but who at home was 
the despot of the Hermitage ! 

His purposes thus far accomplished, he who had 
raised the spirit sought to lay it. But it defies his 
power. Among the crowd of hypocritical worship- 
pers and blind devotees, there are found a few whose 
homage is at once enlightened and sincere. They 
look upon democracy not with a stnpid gaze of admi- 
ration, unable to distinguish between the apparent 
and the real, but with a discernment, upon which the 
arts of political cunning will not easily impose. De- 
mocracy, in their estimation, is not a mere phantom 
by whose aid the credulous may be deluded, and offi- 
ces and honors be secured to the deluders ; it is a real 
existence, a substantial thing, a powerful and essen- 
tial means of advancing the public welfare. It is to 
these adherents, that Democracy now entrusts herself. 
From being the nursling, the pupil, the instrument of 
Southern despotism, she is about to become a rival 
and an enemy. The allegiance she has so long yield- 
ed to Southern step-fathers, she will yield no longer. 
The alliance is broken; and conscious of superior 
power and higher claims. Democracy demands hom- 
age and submission, where hitherto she has paid 
them. 

She prepares to act. She points in sorrow, shame 
and anger, to the capitol turned into a slave market; 
to the broad plains of the south, watered with the 
blood of their cultivators ; and to the thousand petty 
despots, each arbitrary lord and irresponsible tyrant, 
upon his own plantation. 
3 



26 DESPOTISM 

It is in vain that southern oppressors console them- 
selves with ideas of the insignificance of those who 
make the first assault. They may ridicule them as 
fools, fanatics, women. What of that ? Does the re- 
sult of an attack depend upon the prudence, or the 
wisdom of those who have volunteered for the forlorn 
hope ? What matter who or what they are, those 
who rush blindly and devotedly upon the open-mouth- 
ed cannon, the leveled bayonets of the enemy? They 
are but food for powder, and they know it. In every 
great cause it is necessary that some should perish. 
But if the cause be great, for one that falls, ten will 
be found ambitious so to suffer ! 

It is in vain we at tlie North, cry out that the con- 
test is unseasonable and premature. It has begun ; it 
must go on. Grant that over-zealous and fanatical 
haste has precipitated a struggle which we would 
gladly have deferred, and slumbering out our own 
time in quiet, have thrust upon the days of our chil- 
dren. No matter. In this thing we cannot have our 
way. The trumpet has sounded ; the bold and un- 
quiet are rushing to the field. We may cry peace, 
peace, — but there is no peace. Fight we must, upon 
one side or the other. The contest is begun already, 
and will soon become general. In such a struggle 
there can be no neutrality. It is time to be choosing 
under which banner we will stand ! 

To every one at the North, Democracy is to some 
extent familiar. Many have doubtless viewed it 
through a deceptive medium, and have seen it only 
as it has been reflected by ignorance, or distorted by 
prejudice; all however have formed some opinion 
about it, and that opinion is founded upon knowledge 
either actual or imaginary. But Despotisnr, the des- 
potism of the slave states, is a thing known at the 
north only by name, and in general. Few have seen 
it; fewer still have studied it ; and the greater part 
are totally ignorant of its real character. 

Before enlisting, it is well to know the cause in 
which we are to serve. It is the purpose of the fol- 



IN AMERICA. 27 

lowing pages to exhibit the system of social polity 
established in the southern states, such as it is in its 
operation and effects: not in particular and accidental 
instances, but generally, and by virtue of those laws 
of human nature upon which the working of social 
and political institutions must depend. 

This inquiry is necessary for our own satisfaction. 
Without making it, how can we act either reasonably 
or safely? Here is a question with two sides to it, 
and one side or the other, wc must take. How can 
we choose without knowledge 7 Despotism may be 
an excellent thing, well entitled to our warmest sup- 
port; but how can we know it to be so, without 
knowing what it is ? 

Yet are we stopped short, in the very threshold of this 
inquiry, by the threats and execrations of the south. 
Dare to inquire ; dare look behind the veil that hides 
our private doings ; dare question us, or any of our 
acts, and we dissolve the Union ! Such an imperti- 
nence is lawful cause of war, and we will wage it ! 

Indeed ! — It is necessary then to weigh these threats. 

The Union of the States has been made the occasion 
and the theme of a great deal of unmeaning declama- 
tion. An idea seems to prevail, that excellent a thing 
as the Union is, the people, ignorant and short-sight- 
ed, may sometime take it into their heads to think 
otherwise ; and therefore it is necessary to create a 
prejudice in favor of the Union, — a sort of feeling for 
it like that feeling of loyalty, which has often upheld 
a throne in spite of the vices and the tyranny of him 
who sat upon it. 

Under a democratic government, prejudices of this 
sort are not only useless, they are highly mischievous ; 
they are but manacles and fetters put into the hands 
of the artful and designing, by means of which the 
people are bound, and shorn, against their interest, 
and against their judgment. 

The men who formed the Union were neither bet- 
ter nor wiser than ourselves. For certain arguments 
and reasons in its favor, they formed it ; for certain 



28 DESPOTISM 

arguments and reasons in its favor, we should sustain 
it; not for itself; for in itself, it is neither good nor 
bad. It may be either, as circumstances are. 

What are these reasons and arguments in favor of 
the Union? Briefly these; that the Union serves to 
protect us against aggressions from abroad, and civil 
Avar at home ; that it is the best guarantee of our 
independence and our freedom. 

But suppose this same Union to be made the pre- 
text for a violent interference with our dearest rights? 
Suppose that under pretence of preserving the Union, 
we are to be deprived of the liberty of the press, the 
liberty of discussion, the liberty of thought, — nay 
more, the liberty of feeling, the right of sympathy 
with those who suffer? Suppose this Union requires 
to be cemented with blood, and that we are called 
upon to surrender up the noblest of our sons and 
daughters to be tortured to death by southern whips, 
for the grievous sin of having denounced despotism 
with the generous emphasis of freedom? 

Are we ready to bow thus submissively before the 
grim and bloody shrine of this political Moloch? Are 
we prepared to make these sacrifices? When the 
thing has changed its nature, what though it still re- 
tain its former name? Though it be called a Union, 
what is it but a base subjection, a miserable servitude? 

Some sixty years ago, we had a Union with Great 
Britain, a Union that had lasted for near two centu- 
ries, a cherished Union, the recollection of which 
kindled a glow in every American bosom; not a fra- 
ternal Union merely, but closer yet, maternal, filial. 
That connection had many things to recommend it. 
It sustained our weakness ; it brightened our ob- 
scurity ; it made us partakers in the renown of 
Britain, and part and parcel of a great nation. 
What curses, eighty years ago, would have blighted 
the parricide, who should have gone about to sever 
that connection, so dear, so beneficial ! 

The mother country, not satisfied with the affec- 
tion of her daughter, sought to abuse her power, and 



IN AMERICA. 29 

to extort a tribute. But were all the advantages of 
our Union with Britain to be given up, merely to 
avoid the payment of a paltry tax on tea? Were all 
the calamities of civil war to be hazarded, all the 
miseries of a hostile invasion, intrigues with foreign 
powers, and their dangerous interference, public debts, 
standing armies, the risk of anarchy, and of military 
usurpation 7 

Yes, all, said our fathers, all is to be risked, rather 
than surrender our pecuniary independence, rather 
than become tributary to a British parliament ; rather 
than be taxed at the pleasure of the mother country. 
A Union upon such terms is a mockery ; it is not the 
Union we have loved and cherished. We scorn it, 
and we spurn it. 

So our fathers said. And when it is undertaken to 
deprive us not of our money, — which, for the sake of 
peace, we might be willing to part with, — but of that 
whose value money cannot estimate ; when it is at- 
tempted to shut out from us the atmosphere, the essen- 
tial life-breath of liberty; when it is sought to gag 
our free mouths, to forbid and stop the beating of our 
free hearts; to subdue us by penal statutes into a 
servile torpidity, and an obsequious silence, shall we 
hesitate one moment to repel this impudent effort of 
despotism, because, if we refuse to submit, it will en- 
danger the Union 1 Perish the Union ; let it ten times 
perish, from the moment it becomes inconsistent with 
humanity and with freedom ! 

Should South Carolina declare that war, for which, 
as she asserts, she has such lawful cause, and march an 
army northward to enforce silence at the point of the 
bayonet, the sons of those men who fought at Lexington 
and Bunker Hill, will perhaps know how to repel the 
invaders ; and those states which furnished soldiers, 
generals, arms and money, to re-conquer Carolina from 
Cornwallis and Rawdon, will be able, peradventure, 
to vindicate their own liberties against any force which 
Carolinian despots may be able to send against them. 

In this matter, let us learn a lesson from these very 
3# 



§0 DESPOTISM 

Carolinians. It is but four or five years since, that 
South CaroHna considered herself aggrieved, by what 
she esteemed the usurpations of the federal govern- 
ment. She accused Congress of levying taxes, which 
the constitution did not authorize. No matter wheth- 
er the charge were true or false ; those who made it, 
doubtless were sincere. And did they quietly submit 
to this aggression, rather than endanger the Union by 
their resistance? Not they. 

Though denounced at the north as rebels and traitorsj 
though coldly looked upon even by those states which 
shared the grievance, and which had promised to as- 
sist in the redress; though unaided and alone, and 
harassed too by a large party at home, who threat- 
ened, in the event of hostilities, to take sides with the 
general government, — the South Carolinian leaders 
magnanimously dared to "calculate the value of the 
Union ; " and they concluded, like brave men as they 
were, that rather than give place to what they es- 
teemed oppression, rather than be ruled in a manner 
which no constitution authorized, rather than submit 
to an usurped authority, it were better to break the 
Union, and risk a war. 

The bold are always less in danger than the timid. 
The strength and resources of South Carolina com- 
pared with those of the remaining states, were but as 
dust in the balance ; yet rather than provoke violent 
resistance, by an exercise of doubtful authority. Con- 
gress yielded ; the tariff was modified, and the prin- 
ciple of pure and unlimited protection was totally 
abandoned. 

If South Carolina calculated the value of the Union, 
when it was only a question of tariffs and of taxes, 
shall we hesitate to calculate its value, when the 
dearest rights of manhood are in danger? when we 
are commanded to submit in silence, and not dare to 
criticise the despotism that controls us? 

Let them break the Union, if they choose ; it is a 
matter wherein they are free to act. But before they 
break it, they will do well to revise their calculations 



IN AMERICA. 31 

of its value. What the southern States would be, if 
they stood alone ; what elements they have within 
themselves of civilization, greatness, safety, strength, 
and power ; what sort of a nation they would form, if 
isolated, and cut off from intercourse with their north- 
ern neighbors, is an inquiry which will find its proper 
place hereafter. But there are some more obvious 
considerations, which our southern friends will do 
well deliberately to weigh, before they judge fit to 
dissolve the confederacy, and to break up those con- 
stitutional guarantees by which they are now protect- 
ed. As sister states, talk as they may of the mis- 
chievous intermeddlmgs of the north, they enjoy 
privileges and an impunity, they never could expect 
from a foreign, an ofiended and a hostile nation. 
Those unhappy fugitives who had once reached the 
borders of States then truly free, could never be re- 
claimed ; as between independent nations, the tortures 
and the death wantonly inflicted upon northern citi- 
zens, would no longer be regarded with a careless un- 
concern ; and how many forays from the frontiers, 
how many crusades of liberty would there not be un- 
dertaken, by men anxious to redeem from slavery, if 
not their own relatives, those at least whom they re- 
gard as brothers? These collisions, sooner or later, 
would inevitably bring on war ; and the broad banner 
of emancipation, with fifty thousand men to back it, 
once displayed, and gayly flaunting on the southern 
breeze, farewell, and forever, to the despotisms of the 
south ! 

But here we are met again. 

If you have no regard for yourselves, say our south- 
ern friends, fool-hardy and fanatical, if you do not 
tremble at that annihilation with which we threaten 
you, — pray, at least, have some consideration for us. 
Remember the delicacy of oiu" situation. Do you 
wish to involve us in all the horrors of a servile in- 
surrection? Why scatter "seed that will presently 
germinate, and sooner or later will ripen into a har- 
vest of desolation and blood?" 



32 DESPOTISM 

How this solemn objurgation is to be reconciled with 
the loud threat of severing the Union, and enforcing 
silence and submission at the point of the bayonet, 
those can best tell who are accustomed to join that 
threat and this objurgation. In the mean time, we 
may remark a curious analogy. 

When the Jeffersonian aristocrats of the south first 
began to preach the doctrines of democracy, it was in 
terms like these that they were greeted by the north- 
ern oligarchs. " Bad men, wicked, turbulent, sedi- 
tious, fanatical, contrivers of mischief, what mean ye, 
what do ye desire? Would you uproot society from 
its foundations 7 Would you abolish religion ? Would 
you overturn morality ? Would you do away with 
government ? Would you dissolve all ties 7 Would 
you put an end to the established order and rightful 
propriety of things? 

" What ? — Do you seek to elevate the most ignorant 
and abandoned of society to a level with us, their bet- 
ters and natural superiors? Would you deprive us of 
that power and authority which God has seen fit to 
entrust to us, which is our natural right, and which 
we exercise so much to our own honor, and the bene- 
fit of those we rule ? 

" Yes : — and you talk of guillotines too ; you dare 
to denounce us as tyrants; you are organizing a con- 
spiracy for a general insurrection, and for the slaugh- 
ter and destruction of all good men. Out upon ye, ye 
Robespierres, ye Dantons, ye blood-thirsty knaves! 
Democrats forsooth ! — Jacobins, atheists, murderous 
villains ! Why scatter seed that will presently germi- 
nate, and sooner or later, will ripen into a harvest 
of desolation and blood ? " 

So they preached, and so they prated, from pul- 
pits and the press. Yes, and they passed laws too. 
There was the Alien Law, whereby all dangerous 
foreigners were to be excluded from the country ; and 
there was the Sedition Lau\ intended to gag the press, 
and to subject those who spoke disrespectfully of the 
powers that were, to the penalty of fine and imprison- 
ment. 



IN AMERICA. 



33 



When the southern aristocrats offered to our fathers 
the precious boon of democracy, such was the loath- 
ing, such the struggUng reluctance, and such the pas- 
sionate indignation with which they received, and 
would have rejected it. And now that we, in our 
turn, recollecting with gratitude, the good offices of 
the South, seek to repay the favor, and commend to 
their lips that same draught, of their own concocting, 
which however bitter to the taste has health and vigor 
in it, life and strength ; they in their turn, with the rage 
and malice of spoiled and wayward children, reject the 
medicine, snap at the mu'se, and load their best friends 
with frantic maledictions. * 

Let us be patient with them ; — they are sick. Yes 
very sick; and when the fit is on, light-headed. Com- 
pared with their disorder, all the fierce fevers that in- 
fest their clime, are mild and trivial. What angry 
passions, what tormenting fury, what anxious fears, 
what cares, forebodings, terrors, tremors, seize upon 
the despot, when he feels the sceptre slipping from his 
grasp, and sees his subjects ready to claim their free- 
dom? 

How he has governed; how he has trodden under 
foot, men good as he ; what wrongs he has inflict- 
ed ; what cruel, bloody, barbarous, bitter wrongs, he 
knows full well. He dreads a retribution ; he shakes 
and changes color when he thinks how just that retri- 
bution, and if complete, how ample ! Though he be 
brave, a coward conscience chases away his courage ; 
a cold sweat stands upon his brow ; and he becomes 
as fearful as a child, while phantom images of guilty 
actions flit around his pillow, — 

By the apostle Paul, shadows to-night 
Have struck more terror to the soul of Richard, 
Than could the substance of ten thousand soldiers 
Armed in proof — 

Those frightful visions which afliict the south ; 
they are but shadows. One act of generous justice. 



34 DESPOTISM IN AMERICA. 

of prudent justice, which yields what it can safely 
keep no longer, shall absolve the greatest tyrant of 
them all, and send him forth, a neophyte from the 
baptismal font of freedom, pure, washed, and spotless ; 
and he may walk, like Scylla the ex-dictator, through 
the streets of Rome, unguarded, undisguised, and 
meet at every turn one he has injured, yet never 
suffer harm ! 

But an act like this requires a moral courage a noble- 
ness of soul, not common. That justice is the highest 
expediency, is a maxim which our southern friends 
sometimes repeat, but a doctrine which they have not 
the wisdom, nor the magnanimity to practise. 

In the mean time they need our help, our most judi- 
cious care. But to afford it, we ought to understand 
their actual condition ; we must make ourselves fa- 
miliar with that melancholy state of things, of which 
they are at once the champions and the victims. 

And this knowledge is necessary to us not on their 
account only, but also on our own. We form a part 
of the same nation. It is hardly possible for one mem- 
ber to suffer, and the disease not to extend sympatheti- 
cally to the whole body. Suppose a general insurrec- 
tion at the south, — who would be called upon for men, 
arms, and money, to put it down ? Suppose the slaves 
rise upon their masters, — is it not the democrats of the 
north, who are constitutionally bound to draw their 
swords in behalf of despotism 1 — those very democrats, 
who have said and sworn, that resistance to tyrants 
is obedience to God? 

Let us learn, then, the full extent of this obligation ; 
let us know what that system is, which we are bound 
to uphold ! 



CHAPTER FIRST. 

THE RELATION OF MASTER AND SLAVE. 



SECTION I. 

The Origin of Slavery. 

The relation of master and slave, like most other 
kinds of despotism, has its origin in war. By the 
confession of its warmest defenders, slavery is at best, 
but a substitute for homicide. 

Savages take no prisoners ; or those they do take, 
they first torture, and then devour. But when the 
arts of life have made some progress, and the value 
of labor begins to be understood, it is presently dis- 
covered that to eat prisoners, is not the most profitable 
use to which they can be put. Accordingly their lives 
are spared ; and they are compelled to labor for the 
benefit of their captors. Such is the origin of Slavery. 

It was formerly a practice in America to sell as 
slaves, such Indian prisoners as were captured during 
the frequent wars waged Avith the aboriginal inhabit- 
ants. But the great mass of those unfortunate per- 
sons held in servitude throughout the southern states, 
derive their origin from another source. 

A Virginian planter deduces the legitimacy of his 
dominion by the following process. Your great-grand- 
mother being captured by a certain African prince, — 
in a war, undertaken, doubtless, for the mere purpose 
of making prisoners, — was sold upon the coast of 
Guinea to a certain Yankee slave-trader ; and being 
transported by him to James River, was there sold to 



36 DESPOTISM 

a certain tobacco planter. In time, your great-grand- 
mother died : but she left children, to which as a part 
of her produce, the owner of the mother was justly 
entitled. From that owner, through diverse aliena- 
tions and descents, the title has passed to me ; and as 
you are descended from the woman above referred to, 
it is quite clear, how perfectly reasonable and just my 
empire is. 

Whether in point of logic and morals, the above 
deduction is completely satisfactory, is not now the 
question. The nature of the master's claim is stated 
here, only as an assistance towards obtaining a clear- 
er apprehension of the relations which must grow out 
of it. 



SECTION II. 
General idea of a Slave-holding Community. 

Slavery then is a continuation of the state of war. 
It is true that one of the combatants is subdued and 
bound ; but the war is not terminated. If I do not 
put the captive to death, this apparent clemency does 
not arise from any good will towards him, or any ex- 
tinction on my part of hostile feelings and intentions. 
I spare his life merely because I expect to be able to 
put him to a use more advantageous to myself. And 
if the captive, on the other hand, feigns submission, 
still he is only watching for an opportunity to escape 
my grasp, and if possible to inflict upon me evils as 
great as those to which I have subjected him. 

War is justly regarded, and with the progress of 
civilization it comes every day more and more to be 
regarded, as the very greatest of social calamities. 
The introduction of slavery into a community, amounts 
to an eternal protraction of that calamity, and a uni- 



IN AMERICA. 37 

versal diffusion of it through the whole mass of socie- 
ty, and that too, in its most ferocious form. 

When a country is invaded by a hostile army, 
within the immediate neighborhood of the camp it 
becomes impossible to make any effectual resistance. 
However fierce may be the hate with which they look 
upon the invaders, the inhabitants within the range 
of their scouting parties, are obliged to submit. They 
are made to furnish wood, forage and provisions; 
they are forced to toil in the entrenchment of the 
camp; their houses are hable to be ransacked and 
plundered, and their women to be subjected to the 
lusts of the soldiers. Upon certain emergencies, the 
ablest bodied among them will be armed, surrounded 
by foreign squadrons, and obliged to fight against 
their own countrymen. But though plundered with- 
out mercy, and liable to the most frightful injuries, 
yet as then- services are valuable, and even necessary 
to the invaders, they must be allowed to retain the 
means of sustaining existence ; and if under all the 
discouragements to which they are subjected, they 
neglect or refuse to cultivate their fields, they must 
be driven to work at the point of the bayonet, lest the 
invaders might suffer from their negligence, and fall 
short of forage and provisions. 

Now every plantation in the slave states is to be 
looked upon as the seat of a little camp, which over- 
awes and keeps in subjection the surrounding peasan- 
try. The master claims and exercises over his slaves 
all the rights of war above described, and others yet 
more terrible. Consider too that this infliction is not 
limited to a single neighborhood, as in the case of an 
invading army, but is scattered and diffused over the 
whole extent of the country ; nor is it temporary as 
in the other case, but constant and perpetual. It is 
by taking a view like this, that we are enabled to form 
a primary, general, outline idea of the social condition 
of a slave-holding community. 
4 



38 DESPOTISM 

SECTION III. 
The Empire claimed by the Master. 

The relation of master and slave, as we may con- 
clude from the foregoing statements, is a relation 
purely of force and terror. Its only sanction is the 
power of the master ; its best security, the fears of the 
slave. It bears no resemblance to any thing like a 
social compact. Mutual interest, faith, truth, hon- 
esty, duty, affection, good will, are not included, in 
any form whatever, under this relation. 

I3ut let us descend somewhat into particulars, and 
inquire more specifically what is the nature of the 
empire claimed by the master. 

That empire is the most absolute and comprehen- 
sive which it is possible to imagine. The master 
considers his slaves as existing solely for his benefit. 
He has purchased, and he possesses them for his own 
sake, not for theirs. His sole object is to obtain the 
greatest possible profit out of them. 

Perhaps to obtain this greatest profit, it may be ne- 
cessary to feed them plentifully, and clothe them well, 
and to allow them certain intervals of rest, and other 
like indulgences. If the master is of that opinion, he 
acts accordingly. But in so acting he merely pursues 
his own advantage. If he has adopted the contrary 
opinion, if he imagines that he can save more by re- 
trenchment than he can make by outlay, in that case 
he cuts down the allowance of rest, food, and clothing, 
and endeavours to supply the deficiency by the stim- 
ulus of the lash. It is a mere matter of calculation 
either way ; not a question of morals, but a mere 
problem of domestic economy. The slaves are not 
thought of as sentient beings, but as machines to be 
kept in profitable operation. 

One who visits a slave-holding community, for the 
first time, if he have any feelings of humanity and 
any spirit of observation, is puzzled and shocked, by 



IN AMERICA. 39 

what appears to him a series of distressing uncongrui- 
ties. Men who in their relations towards those whom 
they acknowledge as fellow-citizens, fulfil with promp- 
titude and exactness all the duties of benevolence and 
justice, in their conduct towards their slaves, often 
seem destitute of all human sympathies. 

This course of action results from the very position 
of a master ; and men naturally of the most benevo- 
lent dispositions, become reconciled to it by force of 
custom and education. The soldier, frank, generous, 
warm-hearted, ready to share his last dollar with his 
comrade, from the moment he enters an enemy's 
country becomes a violent, fierce, and brutal robber, 
who plunders, whenever he has opportunity, without 
hesitation or remorse. 

It is exactly so with the master of slaves. His con- 
duct towards his fellow-citizens, and towards his ser- 
vants, is regulated by rules and considerations totally 
distinct. In making this distinction, he is supported 
by the laws of the land, and the dogmas of the church; 
upheld by the example and countenance of his friends 
and neighbors; and encouraged by the approbation, 
open or implied, of all the world. If nobody finds 
fault with his conduct, why should he think of chang- 
ing it? Why relinquish a lordship and a revenue, 
which every body tells him, he does right to retain? 

The value of this lordship, and the amount of this 
revenue, would be nothing at all, if instead of looking 
steadfastly, and with a single eye, to his own interest, 
the master should trouble himself about the well-be- 
ing of his slaves. Their well-being evidently requires 
the liberty on their part of pursuing their own hap- 
piness, according to their own notions of it ; and it 
clearly demands the disposal at their pleasure of the 
entire fruits of their own labor. That is, it requires 
the complete cessation of the master's empire. But it 
is impossible for the same thing to be and not to be at 
the same time ; so that whoever wishes to retain the 
character of a master, and to exercise the preroga- 
tives which that character confers and implies, is 



40 DESPOTISM ' 

driven, by an invincible necessity, to disregard the well- 
being of his slaves, and to consider solely his own 
profit. Whether indeed that profit is best promoted 
by retaining the character of master at all ; whether 
the master's interest, npon a full and comprehensive 
view of it, might not best be advanced by ceasing to 
be a master, is a question not now under discussion. 

But in communities where all are free, how many 
are there, who regard any interest except their own? 
And wherein is the particular evil of slavery in this 
respect? 

The peculiar evil of slavery consists in the very 
fact, that the slaves do not stand in this particular on 
a level with other men ; they are not allowed to 
pursue their own interest. Not only is the well-be- 
ing of the slaves disregarded by the masters, it is 
deliberately sacrificed. Left to themselves, like other 
men, tliey would pursue their own happiness, with 
success, less or greater. But their own happiness is 
a thing they are not suffered to pursue ; and if yield- 
ing to the instinctive impulses of nature, they make 
the attempt, they are thwarted and driven back at 
every turn. Their own comfort or pleasure is a thing 
they are not allowed to think of at all ; or to think of 
only at the risk of the lash. 

In free communities, selfishness itself is enlisted 
into the service of benevolence. In order to obtain 
favors, it is necessary to confer them. Mutual ser- 
vices are secured by the attraction of mutual interest. 
But mutuality is a thing which slavery knows not. 
The master does not say, " Work for me, and I will 
give you in return wherewith to feed and clothe 
yourself and family." "Work for me," he says, "or 
I will torture you with the lash!" If the master 
supplies the slave with food and clothes, he does not 
do it by way of compensation for labor. Jt is a ne- 
cessary expenditure, grudgingly laid out, in order to 
keep these human machines in motion. So far from 
being in the nature of a bargain or contract, slavery 
is nothing but violence upon one side, and compulsive 
obedience upon the other. 



IN AMERICA. 41 

SECTION IV. 

Means of enforcing the Master^s Empire. 

To sustain an empire of the kind above described, 
it is evident that the most vigorous means must be es- 
sential. 

The means employed are chiefly three, to wit : force^ 
fear^ fraud ; and according to the different tempers, tal- 
ents, habits and notions of the master, one or the other 
of these three means, is made the key of his system. 

I. Force. Those masters whose tempers are harsh, 
violent, and brutal, especially those who have never 
been softened by education, and who are strangers to 
the refinements of cultivated life, and others who are 
endowed with a firm, decided vigor that moves direct- 
ly to the point, and by the shortest way, rely princi- 
pally upon force. 

Is the slave late in coming into the field? Twenty 
lashes. Is he idle] Thirty lashes. Does he disobey 
or neglect an order? Forty lashes. Does he negligently 
waste or destroy his master's property ? Fifty lashes. 
Is he detected in a lie ? Sixty lashes. Is he strongly 
suspected of theft? Seventy lashes. Does he say 
or do any thing that can be construed into insolence? 
Eighty lashes. Is he guilty of the slightest act of 
insubordination ? One hundred lashes. Does he ven- 
ture to run away? Let him be pursued by men and 
dogs, disabled by small shot, and so soon as he is ta- 
ken, be flogged till he faints, then be worked in chains, 
locked up every night, and kept on half allowance, till 
his spirits are broken, and he becomes obedient and 
contented. Should he dare, upon any occasion, to offer 
any resistance ? Let him be shot, stabbed, beat to the 
ground with a club, and should he not be killed in the 
process, as soon as he is so far recovered as to be able 
to stand, let him be subjected to all the discipline men- 
tioned in the preceding sentence, and in addition, be 
flogged every night, for thirty days in succession. 
4* 



42 DESPOTISM 

Such is a brief specimen of tliis system of plantation 
management, whicli some call cruel, but whicli those 
who follow it, merely describe as vigorous and cilicient. 

II. Fear. But there are many men, naturally soft- 
hearted, who cannot look without some feelings of 
sympathetic pain, or at least of instinctive disgust, 
upon the body of an old man, or a woman perhaps, 
cut up with the lash, and scored with bloody gashes. 
The screams and outcries of the victims affect them 
disagreeably. They lack that harsh, unfeeling vigor, 
that stern promptitude, tyranny's steadiest and most 
efficient support. Tliey endeavor to avoid the actual 
use of the whip, and to govern as far as possible, by 
the fear of it. They utter most tremendous threats, 
and strive to supply by bitter and alarming words, the 
place of action. But words, when they are found to 
be intended only as scare-crows, soon lose their effica- 
cy. It is therefore necessary to maintain a steady 
stream, and the master who governs upon this wordy 
plan, soon comes to keep both himself and his slaves, 
in a constant state of irritation and ill feeling, by a 
process of fault-fmding, scolding and threats, which 
becomes a habit, and goes on from morning to night, 
from day to day, from one year's end to another. 

The slaves, who are thus made to feel every mo- 
ment the weight of tyranny, and the humiliation of 
servitude, contract towards these snarling masters, the 
sincerest hate ; and from hating, being soon satisfied 
that with all their bluster, they have not the vigor to 
act up to their threats, they come presently to despise 
them. Whether they do well or ill, it is much the 
same, the master scolds on by habit ; but tliough he 
scolds, as yet he does not punish ; and the bolder among 
the slaves soon begin to try experiments upon his pa- 
tience. They are encouraged by the impunity of first 
transgressions to take greater and greater liberties. 
Their example finds imitators, till presently the whole 
plantation falls into a state of idleness and insubordi- 
nacy, which cannot be longer o\erlooked or endured. 

The master must now give up the hope of revenue 



IN AMERICA. 43 

from liis slaves, or he must re-establish his authority.. 
He begins with moderate whippings. But his first at- 
tempts in this way are laughed at, or perhaps resisted. 
He is alarmed and inflamed. Anger and tear supply 
a vigor he does not naturally possess. He storms and 
raves ; flogs without mercy ; shoots, stabs, chains, im- 
prisons, starves, tortures. His nature seems to be 
changed, and for a while he acts out the tyrant, in the 
most savage and vindictive spirit of despotism. The 
slaves bend and bow beneath this whirlwind of tyran- 
ny. The most turbulent and unmanageable, — those 
of them at least, who have escaped with their lives, — 
are sent off" and sold ; and presently things subside in- 
to their former state. The master grows ashamed of 
his violence, and perhaps endures some twinges of re- 
morse ; the lash is disused, and the tongue supplies its 
place. The discipline of the plantation is presently 
relaxed ; the servants become idle and insubordinate as 
before; but this flattering calm cannot be relied upon; 
a new storm of tyranny is secretly brewing, which 
will burst at a moment when it is least expected. 

HI. Fraud. There are some masters, who pride 
themselves upon their cunning and superior knowledge 
of human nature, who make considerable use of fraud, 
in the management of their slaves ; but this is a means 
emploj^ed only occasionally, and of which the efficacy 
is not great. 

One of the most usual applications of it, is the at- 
tempt to take advantage of the religious feelings of 
the slaves, and to impress them with the idea, that 
obedience, honesty towards their masters, humble sub- 
mission, and other like plantation virtues, are religious 
duties, which God commands, under the penalty of 
damnation. 

This stratagem is chiefly practised by slave-holding 
clergymen and church members. The religious peo- 
ple of tlie South have been at the pains of preparing 
a slave catechism ; in some places they have establish- 
ed slave Sunday schools; and meetings for slave- 
worship are regularly held. The immediate agents 



44 DESPOTISM 

in these proceedings, are generally men of good in- 
tentions, but of very feeble understandings. They 
are mere tools in the hands of crafty hypocrites. The 
motive of their labors is doubtless the spiritual welfare 
of the slaves ; but those by whom they are supported 
and encouraged, however tender a regard they may 
have for the salvation of their own souls, look upon 
rehgion among slaves merely as a means of plantation 
discipline ; and please themselves with the idea that 
the more religious their slaves are, the easier they may 
be managed. 

The agents employed in this double service of Chris- 
tianity and despotism, often succeed in kindling a 
warm spirit of devotion in the hearts of the slaves; 
but they have often occasion to deplore the inconsist- 
ency, the back-sliding, the delusion of their converts, 
who cannot be made to realize in its full extent, the 
enormous sinfulness of any attempt to elude that ty- 
ranny under which providence requires them patient- 
ly, and even joyfully to submit. 

Deeply sympathizing with the sad, and almost an- 
gry feelings, with which these pious people are accus- 
tomed to lament the small success of their labors, and 
to accuse that stony-heartedness and inherent deprav- 
ity which prevents even the converted slaves from at- 
taining to the perfection of humility and obedience, 
the remark nevertheless may with all due deference, 
be permitted, — that so long as these pious teachers are 
able to construe the generous precepts of the gospel 
into an apology and a justification for tyranny, it can- 
not be considered very surprising that their pupils 
among the slaves, should instinctively acquire the art 
of reconciling with christian patience and submission, 
any and every means, whereby they can shake off, 
alleviate, or elude the usurped authority of their mas- 
ters. 

But this piece of pious fraud is falling into bad odor 
at the South. It has been found that religion causes 
an excitement among the slaves, both dangerous and 
troublesome. The rascals preach and pray when they 



IN AMERICA. 45 

ought to be working. Besides, that religions enthusi- 
asm, which kindles so readily in the most ignorant as 
well as the most cultivated minds, gives rise fo a dan- 
gerous exaltation of soul which makes the subjects 
of it obstinate and unmanageable. Religion once 
awakened in such savage and untaught bosoms, is apt 
to degenerate into a superstitious fanaticism. The 
gifted and the artful begin to see visions, and to dream 
dreams. They are not content with being hearers 
and pupils, they aspire to be speakers and teachers. 
In their sermons and exhortations, it is the vices, the 
luxury, the cruelty, the wickedness of the masters, 
upon which they principally dwell, and whence tliey 
draw examples and illustrations ; and who knows but 
some one more enraptured than the rest, may imagine 
himself called, like Moses of old, to smite the task- 
master, and to lead forth the oppressed children? 

For these reasons the bible has been proscribed at 
the South, as an incendiary publication ; a book not 
fit for slaves to read or hear. In some parts of the 
country the catechism is looked upon with almost equal 
suspicion ; and many masters forbid their slaves to 
hear any preacher, black or white, since they consider 
religion upon a plantation as quite out of place, a thing 
dangerous to the master's authority, and therefore not 
to be endured in the slave. 

Another stratagem, occasionally employed, when it 
is desired to stimulate the efforts of the slaves, is the 
distribution of little prizes among those who accom- 
plish the greatest labor in the shortest time. This 
contrivance works wonderfully well for a few days ; 
but as soon as it is discovered who are the ablest work- 
men, the emulation is confined to them, and the greater 
number, who have no chance to win the prize, pres- 
ently relapse into their former apathy. Besides, this 
distribution of prizes, is apt to give rise among the 
slaves to the inconvenient notion, that they ought to 
be paid for working, and the moment it ceases, they 
work more grudgingly, unwillingly and negligently 
than ever. Moreover it is expensive; in the minds of 
most planters, a decisive objection against it. 



46 DESPOTISM 

But there are cases when force and terror cannot be 
employed, or fail to answer the purpose, and where 
stratagem is necessarily resorted to. The most com- 
mon of these cases, are the detection and prevention 
of theft, and the recovery of runaways. 

Upon these occasions, the most respectable and re- 
ligious masters do not hesitate to descend to every pet- 
ty art of fraud and falsehood. They have hired spies 
and informers among the slaves ; they blacken their 
own faces, and lurk in disguise about the cabins, peep- 
ing through the cracks, and listening at the doors. 
They lure the fugitives back into their power, by the 
most ample promises of pardon, which they break with 
as little hesitation as they make them. Not uncom- 
monly they attempt to take advantage of the supersti- 
tious ignorance of the slaves, and pretend to magical 
and supernatural powers, in hopes of frightening the 
culprit into confession. They exult over the success 
of these fraudulent arts; and in all transactions with 
their slaves, their total want of respect for their own 
word has given ample occasion for the proverb com- 
mon among the unprivileged class, which describes 
white men as "mighty uncertain." 

Of the three principal means above enumerated, and 
briefly explained, upon which the sustentation of the 
slave-master's empire depends, it is evident that the 
first involves the second: for the surest way of striking 
a deep terror into the heart is, to punish every trans- 
gression with a stern and unrelenting severity. 

It accordingly happens that those who act upon this 
P|lan, not only have the least trouble upon their planta- 
tions, but are often comparatively popular, so to speak, 
with their servants. The certainty of punishment 
greatly diminishes the necessity of its frequent inflic- 
tion. The slaves know exactly what to expect; how 
far they can go; and what is the limit they cannot 
safely transgress. If the rule is an iron one, it is never- 
theless steady and sure. It does not partake of that 
uncertainty, which besides being a dangerous tempta- 
tion, is in itself one of the greatest of evils. Slaves 



IN AMERICA. 47 

are like other men; and in general, they far prefer to 
take a punishment, and have it over, to being perpetu- 
ally scolded, threatened, cursed and stormed at, even 
though there may be hope that the storm will end in 
words, and pass over without raining blows. 

But this regular and systematic discipline^ resem- 
bling the despotic precision of a well drilled army, is 
to be found only upon a very few plantations. Most 
masters and most overseers are too negligent, or too 
good humored for their business, or else are ignorant of 
the real nature, and only sure support of the authority 
they exercise. They overlook some offences because 
they do not want the trouble of punishment; some they 
permit to go unnoticed, because they hate to flog a wo- 
man, or a child ; some allowances they make for the 
petulance of old age, or the hot temper of youth. But 
every liberty that goes unpunished is made a pretence 
for yet greater liberties ; the slaves, always eager and 
watchful to regain any particle of freedom, perceive 
in an instant, and with unerring sagacity, every indi- 
cation of weakness, or want of vigor on the part of 
their master ; they artfully break, now this link, and 
now that, from their chains ; till at length, beginning 
to feel something of the spirit of liberty, their " inso- 
lence," to use the master's phrase, becomes intolera- 
ble, and waking from his dream of indulgence and 
good nature, their despot is obliged to vindicate his 
authority, and to repress the licentiousness of his slaves, 
by a sudden outbreak of violence and cruelty, which, 
however he may excuse it by the plea of necessity, he 
cannot think of, in his sober moments, without some 
disagreeable feelings of self-condemnation. 

Thus it is that the greater part of Southern planta- 
tions are the scenes of a constant struggle ; idleness, 
encroachments, a passive resistance upon one side ; 
negligence and yielding first, then passion, violence 
and cruelty upon the other. 



48 DESPOTISM 

SECTION V. 

Means of resistance on the part of the slaves. 

We come now more minutely to consider, with what 
feehngs the slaves look upon their own lot, and what 
resistance they make to the usurped authority of their 
masters. For by the very, constitution of human na- 
ture, it happens of necessity, that such an authority 
must be resisted, in some shape or other. 

As to escaping from a condition to which they seem 
to have been born, and in which they are held by the 
joint interest, real or supposed, of all the menibers of 
the privileged class, that is, of all those who make and 
enforce the laws, and who alone possess knowledge, 
wealth and influence in the community ; — such a de- 
liverance appears impossible, and rarely enters into 
their thoughts. It is true that running away is ex- 
tremely frequent ; but in ninety-nine cases out of a 
hundred, the runaway is speedily retaken and severe- 
ly punished ; and the attempt is generally made, not 
with any hope of ultimate escape, but as a means of 
eluding for the moment some threatened misery, which 
the unhappy fugitive has not the courage to face. 

However, if a door were opened for their escape ; if 
by any circumstance they were induced to entertain 
the idea of it, and if that idea budded into hope, it is not 
to be supposed that they would stickle, or hesitate at 
any means, however horrible, that seemed necessary 
or convenient, towards the accomplishment of that 
great end. Prisoners of war, if they can but take their 
guards at unawares, are accustomed to stab them with 
their own bayonets, and by that bloody means, to break 
away. Captives, such as slaves are, must be expected 
to act upon the same ideas ; but with a promptitude 
the readier, and a hate the more earnest, in proportion 
to their longer restraint and their greater provocation. 
When has the master respected the person of his slaves? 
Would he hesitate one moment to stab, shoot, hang, or 



IN AMERICA. 49 

burn the best beloved of his servants, if he supposed 
that servant's hfe inconsistent with his safety, or with 
the security of that tyrannical empire, upon which de- 
pends his condition of master 7 Let there be the whis- 
per of an insurrection, and the old trees of the plant- 
ation, shall dance with dying men strung thick as 
acorns. This the slaves know ; and knowing it, what 
wonder, when the desperate project of insurrection is 
resorted to, what wonder, if they grant no mercy where 
they can expect none? What wonder, if with the tor- 
ture of death by a slow fire, or by some other means 
equally cruel, before their eyes, they feel no clemency ? 
What wonder, if they steel their hearts to pity, and 
emulate their masters in bloody cruelties and barbar- 
ous revenge ] In so doing, they merely practice a les- 
son they have been all their lives learning ; all their 
lives, the sword has been pointed at their hearts, and 
if they in any way succeed in grasping it by the hilt, — 
what wonder if they use it? 

If it were possible to speak otherwise than seriously 
upon so grave a matter, it would be difficult to point 
out any thing more ridiculous than the frantic fear, 
the panic terror, the ineffable alarm spread throughout 
the iSouth, by the slightest suspicion of insurrection 
among the slaves. That the women and children 
should be terrified, is natural enough ; but that men, 
men of violence and blood, accustomed to go their 
daily rounds with the pistol in one hand and the whip 
in the other, men who have every advantage on their 
side with the single exception of justice, — an exception 
however, which they affect to deny and disregard ; — 
that such men should stagger and turn pale at the 
mere report of a distant insurrection, can only be, be- 
cause a guilty conscience disturbs their reason, and 
frights away their courage. 

Do they not know the stake for which they play? 
Have they not considered the conditions of the game? 
What! — Do they entertain the puerile notion, that an 
eternal war can be waged, and all the blows, the 
thrusts, the cuts, the wounds, the danger, be only on 
5 



50 DESPOTISM 

one side? Is it so terrible and atrocious a thing, that 
my enemy dares to struggle in my grasp? What 
though I have him on the ground, my knee upon his 
breast, and a dagger at his throat, is it so strange that 
even in that position, still he resists, and strives to push 
his weapon to my heart? 

Slavery being in its nature, a permanent state of war, 
although the overwhelming force of the masters, re- 
strains the slaves for the most part to an apparent sub- 
mission, yet occasional outbreaks must from time to 
time, be expected. The ignorance in which the slaves 
are kept, makes them incapable of perceiving the utter 
hopelessness of success ; and there are some hot tempers, 
and enthusiastic minds, which, though they did per- 
ceive it, would still be ready to risk any thing and every 
thing, for the most trifling chance of freedom and re- 
venge. The danger from these outbreaks is extremely 
small. They will cost the masters now and then a few 
lives; but that is the fortune of war, and those brave 
soldiers who can slaughter the enemy with such per- 
fect indifference, if not with absolute gusto, ought to be 
able to lose a few of their own number, without being 
so wholly carried away with panic terror. 

An intended rising requires preparations, means, and 
an extended combination, which generally lead to its 
detection before the conspirators are ready to act. Be- 
sides, it is only under peculiar circumstances, that any 
thing of the kind can be attempted. The slaves are 
so much in the power, and at the mercy of their mas- 
ters, that they seldom venture upon any thing like vio- 
lent opposition ; they content themselves, for the most 
part, with a passive resistance. 

The master claims, and endeavors to possess him- 
self of the whole time, capacity and labor of the slave. 
The slave does not venture openly to resist this rob- 
bery; but he attempts, by all the silent and quiet means 
in his power, to evade it, to escape the exactions, and 
to diminish the plunder of his master. 

He yields his time from day-light, until dark; or 
rather he seems to yield it; for if he be not constantly 



IN AMERICA. 51 

watched, he contrives to regain hours and moments, 
which as he can apply them to no better use, he spends 
in idleness or sleep. His capacity is a thing more in his 
own power. It is in general, only certain simple acts 
of manual labor that can be extorted by force. The 
mind is fcee. A master cannot force his slave to rea- 
son, to remember, or except in certain cases, to hear, 
or see. If he is sent with a message, he forgets it. He 
never considers that if the fence is broken, the cattle 
will get among the corn : and if they do, he neither sees 
nor hears them. The thing he is commanded to do, 
that single thing he does, and nothing else. The mas- 
ter would go hunting, and he sends his slave to bring 
his powder-flask. The slave sees there is no powder 
in it ; — but what is that to him ? — he does as he was 
bid, and carries the flask. When the gun is to be 
loaded, it appears then there is no ammunition. " Go 
home," says the master, "in the closet on the upper 
shelf there is a canister of powder ; fill the flask, and 
bring it to me." As it happens, there are two canis- 
ters, one good, the other damaged. The slave takes 
down the damaged canister first, and without further 
examination fills the flask with powder that cannot be 
used, and carries it to his master. He is set to plant- 
ing corn. The seed, it chances, is worm-eaten and de- 
cayed. What is that to him 7 He goes on planting. 
It is just so in every thing else. He neglects to exer- 
cise his reasoning faculties at all. He becomes appa- 
rently as stupid and thoughtless as the mule he drives. 
Whatever capacity or understanding he may have, he 
sinks it, hides it, annihilates it, rather than its fruits 
should be filched from him by his owner. 

He is compelled to labor so many hours ; but he 
takes care to labor to the least possible advantage. 
Nothing stimulates him but the fear of the whip ; and 
under the show of diligence he proceeds with the 
greatest possible dawdling and deliberation. Is he a 
brick-layer? He selects a brick with caution and 
solemnity ; he turns it over a dozen times ; he looks 
as carefully at every side of it as if it were covered 



52 DESPOTISM 

with intelligible hieroglyphics ; he feels the corners and 
the edges ; he fits it to its place ; removes it ; takes 
up the mortar ; spreads and slowly arranges it with 
his trowel ; and at last — lays the brick. 

In all those processes which require any thing of 
skill or judgment, it is impossible to extort a large 
amount of labor from a slave. He conceals his idle- 
ness so cunningly, any attempt to drive him seems to 
put him into such a flatter and confusion, that he 
bungles or spoils his work, and it becomes necessary 
that it should be done over again, allowing the work- 
man his own time. The master can only insist that 
he shall devote his whole time to the work, but he 
must be content to let him dally and trifle with it as 
he chooses. 

Hence it is that slave labor is only profitable for 
those rude and simple processes, which demand no- 
thing but an exertion of muscular strength. A slave 
may be driven by the whip to cut up grass with the 
hoe, or to pick cotton with his fingers, nearly or quite 
as fast as a freeman, who labors for himself; but to 
compel this labor he must be constantly watched and 
pressed ; and if the whip is not used upon his shoul- 
ders, he must at least see it brandished in the air as a 
spur to his activity. 

Tbe day, from earliest dawn oft times till long past 
dark is all the master's; but the night, since the hu- 
man machine requires some rest and relaxation, is 
principally yielded to the slave. He is thus trans- 
formed into a nocturnal animal. During the day, he 
appears a dull, stupid, sleepy, inanimate thmg, with- 
out sense or spirit, little better than an idiot, and 
neither so sprightly nor so sensible as the horse he 
drives. At night, he becomes quite another creature. 
He runs laughing, singing, jesting, to his cabin. With 
his calabash of corn, he hastens to the hand mill; and 
as one grinder succeeds another, the rumbling of the 
stones is heard all night, a doleful sound, mixed with 
the curses and execrations of those who grind. But 
it rumbles on with a steadiness which shows with 



IN AMERICA. 53 

what incessant industry the mill is phed, and which 
is evidence enough that those who grind, labor not 
for their master, but themselves. His corn cracked 
into hominy, or ground to meal, he kindles up a fire, 
and prepares his simple, and too often scanty supper; 
his family gathers about the smoking dish ; they eat 
with lively talk and laughing repartee ; and as no 
whip cracks in their ears, they readily forget that 
such a thing exists. 

Tlie meal ended, they do not think of sleep. They 
meet for talk and dances. The more daring secretly 
mount their master's horses and ride to visit their 
cronies upon some neighboring plantation. One goes 
courting, another to see his wife ; some v/ith dogs and 
axes hunt the opossum, a night-walker like them- 
selves ; some meet to preach and pray ; others prowl 
about to see what thing of value they can lay their 
hands upon. Others yet, with bags of stolen corn or 
cotton on their heads, secretly set off to visit some 
petty trader, who receives their stolen goods in ex- 
change for whiskey. 8ome have a bottle on hand, 
and collecting their intimates about them, they drink, 
and emboldened by the liquor, they discuss the con- 
duct of their masters, or the overseer, with a keen 
freedom, a critical observation, an irony as bitter as it 
is just; — happy if a prowling overseer, or some false- 
hearted spy does not stand hstening, and make them 
presently pay the penalty of free discussion. It is 
only toward morning that they think of sleep ; and it 
is surprising with how little sleep they exist. But in 
fact, their day time is but a lethargy, during which, 
though the body be active, the mind slumbers. 

But as the slaves become more numerous, and the 
masters more timid and more exacting, tyranny takes 
possession even of the night. At dark, the slaves are 
penned up like cattle, and forbidden to leave their 
huts, lest they should employ themselves in plunder, 
or in plotting insurrection ; or if merely indulging in 
sports and amusements, lest they should exhaust that 
strength and vigor, which the master claims as wholly 
5* 



64 



DESPOTISM 



his. The dance is forbidden ; no merry laugh is 
heard, no torch-lights are seen glancing and streaming 
on the darkness, or eclipsing the splendor of the moon, 
as the slaves pass from one cabin to another. All is 
still as night and tyranny can make it ; and if the 
slaves, spite of this despotism, yet have their meet- 
ings, for talk, for drinking, for plunder, or for prayer, 
all are equally prohibited, and they steal forth with 
slow and stealthy steps, watchful and cautious as the 
midnight wolf 

The masters greviously complain of this night- 
walking propensity on the part of the slaves. Besides 
the efforts of each planter to suppress it on his own 
estate, and the barbarous severity, with which it is 
customary to punish slaves for being found visiting 
on a plantation to which they do not belong, — public 
patrols are established for the purpose of arresting, 
flogging, and sending home, all slaves caught wander- 
ing at large without a pass, that is, a written permission. 

The two grand charges, however, brought against 
the slaves, and which are quoted by the masters as 
decisive proofs of their lamentable depravity, and to- 
tal destitution of all moral principle, are the accusa- 
tions of lyings and of theft. 

1. The slaves, we are told, are arrant liars. They 
lie for themselves; they lie for each other; and to de- 
ceive their master or the overseer is esteemed among 
them as an action, not blameless only, but even 
praiseworthy. 

Well, — why not? Falsehood has ever been con- 
sidered a lawful art of war ; and slavery, as we have 
seen, is but a state of protracted hostilities. Do we 
not applaud a general for the stratagems and arts by 
which he deceives, misleads, entraps his enemy ? Do 
not the very masters themselves, chuckle and exult 
over the ingenious falsehoods by which they have de- 
tected a theft, or recovered a runaway? Though 
they be tyrants let them use a little philosophy Di- 
onysius did so, and so did Pisistratus. With their 
masters, enemies who have seized them, and who 



IN AMKRICA. 55 

keep them by force, the slaves are not connected by 
any ties of social duty. It is a condition of open war ; 
and as in point of strength, the slaves are wholly 
overmatched, stratagem and falsehood are their only 
resource ; and if by bold lying, vociferous protesta- 
tions, and cunning frauds, they can escape some 
threatened aggression, if they can so secure some par- 
ticle of liberty from the prying search and greedy grasp 
of despotism, why blame them for acts, which in like 
cases, all the world has justified, and has even exalt- 
ed to the character of heroism ? 

In a slave, considered as a slave, cunning is almost 
the sole quality of mind which he has any occasion to 
exercise; and by long practice it is sometimes carried 
to an astonishing perfection. Under an air of the great- 
est heedlessness and stupidity, and an apparent apathy 
more than brutal, there is occasionally veiled, a quick 
and accurate observation, a just estimate of temper and 
disposition, lively and ardent feelings, and a loftiness 
of spirit, which some day perhaps, will burst its ordi- 
nary cautious bounds, and terminate the life of its 
possessor, by bullets, knives, the gibbet, or the flames. 

2. It is astonishing say the masters, how destitute 
of all conscience, these rascals are. The best among 
them, the most pious and obedient, are no more to be 
trusted than so many foxes. Even our domestic ser- 
vants steal every thing they can touch. There must 
be a lock on every door, every trunk, every closet. 
But even the strictest watchfulness is no match for 
their arts ; and the sternest severities cannot repress 
their spirit of plunder. 

The slaves it seems then, however overmastered 
and subdued, do still, in a silent and quiet way, and 
to the best of their ability, retort upon their masters 
the aggressions and the robbery that are perpretrated 
on themselves. 

Property, it is to be recollected, is a thing establish- 
ed among men, by mutual consent, and for mutual 
convenience. The game I have killed, the fish I have 
caught, the vegetables I have cultivated, are decided 



66 DESPOTISM 

to be mine, and are secured to me by the consent and 
"warranty of all my tribe, because the security and 
comfort of each member of it, requires for himself, the 
like privilege and protection. But between slaves and 
masters, there is no such compact, no such consent, no 
such mutual arrangement. The masters claim all ; and 
so far as they are able, they take all ; and if the slaves 
by stealth, by art, by cunning, can secretly regain 
the possession of some gleanings from the fruits of 
their own labor, why should they not 7 It is in their 
eyes a spoiling of the Egyptians ; it is a seizure and 
appropriation of things to which they surely have a 
better title than the masters. 

Is it to be supposed that in the prosecution of a per- 
petual war, the plunder will be all upon one side 7 
The disproportion is doubtless very great ; the aggres- 
sors, as their strength and means are so superior, car- 
ry off rich trophies and abundant spoils ; the con- 
quered are well pleased to gather some fragments, to 
filch some trifles from the over-loaded stores of the 
triumphant invaders, who plundering upon a great 
scale themselves, are yet astonished at the depravity 
of those who plunder on a small one. To expect, 
as between masters and slaves the virtues of truth, 
probity and benevolence, is ridiculous. Slavery re- 
moves the very foundation of those virtues. 



SECTION VI. 

The treatment of American slaves considered as ajii- 
mals. 

The slave-master desires to look upon his slaves as 
he does upon his horses; to persuade himself that his 
empire over both is equally just; and that the claims 
and rights of horses and of slaves, are confined with- 
in the same limits. 



57 IN AMERICA. 

But even in this view of the case, narrow and false 
as it is, the slave-holder too often falls lamentably 
short of what common humanity, and ordinary good 
nature require. 

A slave is an expensive animal, since he must be 
supplied not only with shelter and food, but with fire, 
and clothing. There are however several circum- 
stances in the condition of the southern states, v/hich 
operate at present to reduce these expenses to a mini- 
mum. 

The houses of the slaves for the most part, are lit- 
tle miserable log cabins, with chimnies of sticks and 
clay, without windows, and often without a floor, 
but one step in advance of the primeval wigwam. 
They contain but one room, in which the whole fami- 
ly is huddled together without any regard to the pri- 
vacies or decencies of life ; nor are they in any respect 
superior, if indeed they are equal, to the stables or the 
cow house. The furniture is as rude as the dwelling, 
and betokens the lowest state of poverty and destitu- 
tion. When these cabins have become thoroughly 
rotten, and ready to tumble to the ground, they are re- 
built at no other expense except a few days labor of 
the plantation carpenter. Other things have under- 
gone great improvements; but in the construction and 
comforts of a slave's cabin, there has been little or no 
change for upwards of a century. 

Clothing, especially in the more northern of the 
slave states is an expensive item; but as its necessity 
in those parts of the country is the more apparent, 
the good economy of furnishing a tolerable supply is 
more generally acknowledged, and the suffering of 
the slaves from deficiency of clothing, is probably 
much less than in the more southern states, where the 
mildness of the climate encourages the masters to 
stint the allowance, and where the numerous deaths 
among the slaves from quinsy, influenza, and pleu- 
risy, are a proof how insufficiently they are guarded 
against the sudden changes from heat to cold, to 
which the whole climate of the United States is so 



68 DESPOTISM 

liable. The children, till they reach the age of twelve 
or fourteen, rim about ahnost naked, being covered, if 
at all, only by an unwashed shirt of tattered osna- 
burgs. Their sufferings from cold must sometimes be 
excessive. 

Firewood is still so abundant throughout all the 
southern states, as in most parts of the country to 
have no exchangable value ; or to owe that value en- 
tirely to the labor expended in preparing it. The 
slaves are at liberty to take from the woods on Sun- 
da5''s, or by night, such supplies as they choose. For 
the most part, they carry it on their heads ; though 
sometimes on Sunday, they are allowed the use of a 
pair of oxen and a cart. To save steps and trouble, 
if they can do it without detection, they generally 
prefer to lay their hands upon the first fence they 
come to. 

Very different opinions prevail in different portions 
of the southern states, as to the quantity of food 
which it is necessary or expedient to allow a slave. 
In Kentucky, Missouri, and Tennessee, where corn 
and bacon are produced in great abundance, and 
where their value is small, the slaves are allowed as 
much coarse food as they desire ; and the plump con- 
dition and buoyant vivacity of the children, are an 
evidence that they seldom suffer from hunger. 

In Virginia, Maryland, and North Carolina, where 
corn is seldom worth above fifty cents the bushel, 
some sixteen bushels of it, is considered a competent 
yearly supply for a slave, to which is generally added, 
a weekly allowance larger or smaller, of fish or meat. 

In the states further south, which may be properly 
designated as the cotton growing states, where corn is 
generally worth a dollar or upwards the bushel, and 
where provisions of all sorts are comparatively scarce 
and high, twelve bushels of dry corn by the year, 
without any allowance of meat or fish, or any thing 
beside, is esteemed a large enough supply of food for 
a working hand. Sweet potatoes, are sometimes serv- 
ed out during the fall and winter months, instead of 



IN AMERICA. 59 

corn ; and on the rice plantations, broken or damaged 
rice furnishes the chief supply of food; but whether 
it be corn, potatoes, or rice, the allowance is often 
scanty enough ; and the starved, shriveled, peaked 
condition of the children upon many plantations, are 
too evident proofs how cruelly they are stinted. 

With respect to this subject, the following observa- 
tion is worthy of attention. A certain quantity of 
food may suffice to sustain life, and even strength, 
yet not be enough to appease the cravings of appetite, 
nor to stay or prevent the torments of hunger. Most 
laboring men at the North, might probably live and 
enjoy health, though their daily food were diminished 
in quantity one half, or even more; yet this is a sac- 
rifice they would very reluctantly make ; and the cer- 
tainty of life and health Avould be no sufficient conso- 
lation for the gnawings of hunger, and the disquie- 
tudes of an unsatisfied appetite. 

It happens very unluckily, that the slaves in that 
part of the coimtry where they are worst supplied 
with food and clothing, are yet subjected to the se- 
verest and most unremitting labors. 

In Missouri, Kentucky, North Carolina, Virginia 
and Maryland, except in those limited tracts in which 
the culture of tobacco is pursued, there are considerable 
intervals in every year, when the labor of the slaves 
is little needed, and when the tasks imposed are suf- 
ficiently light. But the cultivation of tobacco, and 
still more, that of rice, sugar and cotton, is an inces- 
sant round of labor, from one year's end to the other. 
These plants are a long time in coming to perfection. 
The labor of securing the crop, and preparing it for 
market, is very great; and one year's work is hardly 
ended, before it is time to begin upon the next. Win- 
ter or Summer, there is no rest nor relaxation from 
constant, steady toil. 

On the whole, it may be stated that the physical 
condition of the slaves throughout the southern states, 
is far inferior in every respect, to that of the unfortu- 
nate men, confined for the punishment of their crimes 



60 DESPOTISM 

in our Northern prisons and penitentiaries. Their 
food is less savoury, less abundant, and far less vari- 
ous, — and a certain variety of diet seems as essential 
to health as it is agreeable to the taste. The work de- 
manded of them is far more fatiguing and severe, the 
time of labor is longer, the clothing with which they are 
supplied is far less comfortable; and their exposure 
far more trying. That sort of discipline which we 
have fixed upon as the most terrible and exemplary 
punishment of crime, — or rather a discipline much 
more severe than that, — is the regular, constant, per- 
petual condition of a large proportion of our fellow- 
countrymen at the south. 

What lias been observed with respect to food, ap- 
plies with equal force to physical condition in general. 
That which is sufficient to sustain existence, is by no 
means sufficient for comfort, or for pleasure. Life 
may be supported, and protracted under such a series 
of privations that it ceases to be any thing but a con- 
tinuity of suff"ering. 

That the physical condition of the slaves, is far in- 
ferior on an average to that of the free, may bo made 
evident by some statistical considerations. During 
the forty years, preceding 1830, the average annual 
increase of the white population of the United States, 
amounted to 3,04 per cent. ; while the average annual 
increase of the slave population, during the same 
period, amounted to 2,67 per cent. Emigration from 
abroad contributed to swell the increase of the white 
population. Let us suppose, and it will be a very 
liberal allowance, that the annual increase of the 
white population by this means, amounted to ,37 per 
cent. Making this allowance, it would follow, that 
the domestic white population, and the slave popu- 
lation have increased in the same ratio.* 

* The foreign slave trade was not abolished till 1808. Up to that 
year, the proportional increase of the slave population by that means, 
was in all probability, fully equal to the increase of the free popula- 
tion by emigration from abroad. The great influx of foreign emigra- 
tion into the United States, is quite recent in its origin. 



IN AMERICA. 61 

Now it is to be recollected that there are certain 
prudential checks, as they are denominated, constant- 
ly operating to retard the increase of the white popu- 
lation. The extent to which these checks operate, 
oven in those parts of the country in which the white 
population increases with the greatest rapidity, will 
be obvious, when it is considered, that in the state of 
New York, as appears from the results of the State 
census, in 1825 and in 1835, out of all the women in 
the state between the ages of sixteen aud forty-five, 
that is, of an age to bear children, two fifths are un- 
married. 

Among the slaves, these prudential checks are to- 
tally unknown. There is nothing to prevent them 
from yielding to the instincts of nature. Child-bear- 
ing is stimulated and encouraged by the masters, and 
so far as it depends upon the mere production of chil- 
dren, the slave population ought to increase, two fifths 
faster than the free. Instead of doubling once in 
twenty-five years, it ought to double once in fifteen 
years. If the increase is kept down to the former 
level, it is only because disease and death are busier 
among the slaves than among the free ; and as the 
slaves escape all those kinds of disorders which spring 
from luxury and over indulgence, this greater mortality 
can only be ascribed to greater severity of labor, and 
to destitiUion of the physical supports of life. 

It is often argued that self-interest alone is enough 
to make the master attentive to the lives and health 
of his slaves ; on the same principle that he provides 
corn for his horses, and fodder for his cattle. But that 
provident and enlightened economy which makes a 
present sacrifice for the sake of avoiding a future 
greater loss, however it may be generally recommend- 
ed and applauded, is but seldom practiced ; and he 
who is familiar with the domestic management of the 
southern states, must know that of all places in the 
world, it is least practiced there. 

An anecdote is related of a Virginian planter, who 
discharged his overseer, because sufficient cattle had 
6 



62 DESPOTISM 

not died during the winter to furnish leather enough 
to supply the slaves with shoes. This story though 
perhaps a little exaggerated, will serve to give an idea 
of the domestic economy of the south ; and he who 
knows how many mules and horses yearly drop in 
the furrow, through starvation, over-work, and the 
abusive treatment, which the slaves, emulous of their 
masters, heap upon the only creatures in their power; 
he who has seen the condition of southern cattle in 
the month of March, hundreds actually starved to 
death, and those which are alive, a mere anatomy of 
skin and bones, with hardly substance enough to cast 
a shadow, searching with feeble steps, and woeful 
countenance, for a spear or two of Avithered grass, 
wlierewith to protract their miserable existence; he 
who has seen these things, would not much care to 
have his life or his sustenance dependent upon the 
good economy of a management so utterly thriftless 
and unfeeling. 



SECTION VII. 

The treatment of American slaves^ considered as men. 

There are some people whose sympathies have been 
excited upon the subject of slavery, who if they can 
only be satisfied that the slaves have enough to eat, 
think it is all very well, and that nothing more is to 
be said, or done. 

If slaves were merely animals, whose only, or chief 
enjoyment consisted in the gratification of their bodily 
appetites, there would be some show of sense in this 
conclusion. But in fact, however crushed and bruti- 
fied, they are still men ; men whose bosoms beat with 
the same passions as our own ; whose hearts swell with 
the same aspirations, — the same ardent desire to im- 



IN AMERICA. 63 

prove their condition ; the same wishes for what they 
have not ; the same indifference towards what they 
have ; the same restless love of social superiority ; the 
same greediness of acquisition ; the same desire to 
know; the same impatience of all external control. 

The excitement which the singular case of Casper 
Hauser, produced a few years since, in Germany, is 
not yet forgotten. From the representations of that 
enigmatical personage, it was believed that those from 
whose custody he declared himself to have escaped, 
had endeavoured to destroy his intellect, or rather to 
prevent it from being developed, so as to detain him 
forever in a state of infantile imbecility. This sup- 
posed attempt at what they saw fit to denominate, the 
murder of the soul, gave rise to great discussions 
among the German Jurists ; and they soon raised it 
into a new crime, which they placed at the very head 
of social enormities. 

It is this very crime, the murder of the sold, which 
is in the course of continuous and perpetual perpetra- 
tion througliout the southern states of the American 
Union; and that not upon a single individual only, 
but upon nearly one half the entire population. 

Consider the slaves as men, and the course of treat- 
ment which custom and tlie laws prescribe, is an art- 
ful, deliberate, and well digested scheme to break 
their spirit ; to deprive them of courage and of man- 
hood ; to destroy their natural desire for an equal par- 
ticipation in the benefits of society; to keep them 
ignorant, and therefore weak ; to reduce them if possi- 
ble to a state of idiocy ; to crowd them down to a 
level with the brutes. 

A man, especially a civilized man, possessed of a 
certain portion of knowledge, and well skilled in some 
art or science, is a much more valuable piece of prop- 
erty, and capable of producing for his master, a far 
greater revenue, than a mere, two-legged human ani- 
mal, with all the failings and defects, and none of the 
virtues of a savage. But if such a slave is more 
valuable, he is far more dangerous, and far more dif- 



64 DESPOTISM 

ficult to manage. To extort the services of such a 
slave, by mere severity, would always be hazardous,- 
and often impossible. Drive him to despair, of which 
such a man in such circumstances, is easily suscepti- 
ble, and he might violently end a life from which he 
derived no enjoyment, and court a death which oifer- 
ed hirn, at least, the pleasure of thwarting the hopes 
of a too greedy master. With such slaves, it has al- 
ways been found necessary, to enter into a sort of 
compromise, — a treaty of peace, in which, if the claims 
of the conqueror were largely provided for. some re- 
spect has also been paid, to the rights and the happi- 
ness of the conquered. The claims of the master 
have been commuted for a monthly or daily tribute ; 
and what else the slave could make or gain, has been 
relinquished to his own use. He has been further en- 
couraged by the prospect of presently purchasing his 
freedom ; or of obtaining it by the free gift of a mas- 
ter well satisfied with his services. 

But though such slaves are very profitable, they 
are also, as has been above observed, very dangerous. 
Put thus upon a level with their masters, in all that 
constitutes the moral strength of men ; keenly sensi- 
tive to the injustice that is done them, and to the un- 
fair advantage that has been taken of their weakness, 
— they have ever been ready to burst into rebellion, 
have sometimes succeeded in overpowering their mas- 
ters, and have often maintained a long, a bloody, and 
a doubtful contest. 

All this is perfectly well understood at the south. 
A slave who can read is valuable on many accounts, 
and will sell for more money than one who cannot. 
A slave who can read, write, and compute, and who 
by reason of these accomplishments is able to fulfil 
the duties of a merchant's clerk, is plainly far more 
valuable than a mere field hand. One who under- 
stands the art of printing, an armorer, an apothecary, 
are evidently capable of performmg more profitable 
operations, than he who knows only how to handle a 
hoe. 



IN AMERICA. 65 

But well aware how dangerous such slaves would 
be, the privileged order have perferred to sacrifice 
profit to safety. In most of the slave holding states, 
it is specially enacted that no slave shall be taught to 
read. This inability to read, disquaUfies them at once 
for all the higher occupations. Some few are rudely 
instructed in those simple handicrafts indispensable 
upon every plantation ; but custom and public opinion, 
if not the law, imperiously forbid, that any slave 
should be bred up to the knowledge or practice of any 
of the superior arts. Some publishers of newspapers, 
in defect of white journeymen, introduced slaves into 
their offices as compositors ; but the experiment was 
pronounced too dangerous, and they were obliged to 
relinquish it. 

With the exception of those employed in domestic 
service, and in tiie few mechanic arts above mention- 
ed, the great mass of the slaves are occupied in agri- 
culture, which, for the most part, is prosecuted in the 
rudest possible way. This is a subject which will be 
more fully considered in a subsequent chapter. Every 
thing is done by main strength, and under the direc- 
tion of an overseer. The slaves are confined to the 
constant repetition of a few simple mechanical acts ; 
and continually employed as they are in this constant 
roinid of stupefying labor, which is not enlivened by 
hardly a single glimpse of art or intellect; thus shut 
out from the means and opportunity of exercising their 
higher faculties, no wonder that the soul falls into a 
deep and death-like slumber. Drugged with such a 
stupefying cup, so artfully administered, the soul 
murder if not complete, is closely approximated. The 
man loses his manhood, and is a man no longer. 
Those mental and moral capabilities which are his 
pride and glory, fall into abeyance, and apparently 
he dwindles down into something little better than 
a mere animal. 

The domestic slaves, being constantly attendant 
upon their masters, and listeners to their daily con- 
versation, cannot but pick up some crumbs of knowl- 
6# 



66 DESPOTISM 

edge, and acquire a certain habit of reasoning and re- 
flection. In consequence of these accomphshments 
they are feared, suspected, and very narrowly watch- 
ed. In all the towns and villages of the south, the 
strictest regulations are established and enforced, by 
which among other things, the slaves are forbidden to 
leave their master's houses after an early hour in the 
evening, and in many other respects, are subjected to 
a constant system of the most prying and suspicious 
espionage. 

Some writers misled by a spirit of patriotism, or de- 
ceived by views too superficial, have represented the 
system of American slavery as extremely mild, and 
quite a different thing from slavery in any other age 
or country. There is a difference it is true; but that 
difference is not favorable to us. It is easy to show, 
that in certain most essential points, — those fundamen- 
tal points by which alone a social system ought to be 
judged, — American slavery is a far more deadly and 
disastrous thing, more fatal to all the hopes, the sen- 
timents, the rights of humanity, than almost any other 
system of servitude which has existed in any other 
community. 

Slavery as it existed among the ancient Greeks and 
Romans has been often referred to, as a system of the 
extremest severity, cruel beyond any thing to be found 
in modern times.* No doubt that system was bad 
enough. It would be well however, if other systems 
were not worse. 

The Roman master had the power of life and death 
over his slaves ; but the slaves, in this respect, stood 
upon a level with the freemen ; for the Roman hus- 
band and father had the same power over his wife 
and his children, and he might claim and exercise it, 
long after those children had passed the age of puber- 
ty, and even after they had attained to the highest 
honors and distinctions of the state. It is true that the 
laws do not confer an equal authority upon the Ameri- 
can master ; bat it is equally true that the lives of his 

* See Channing on Slavery. 



IN AMERICA. 67 

slaves are not the less in his power. It is easy for the 
master to invent a thonsand pretences for taking the 
life of any slave, against whom he may have conceiv- 
ed a prejndice. If he does not think it prndent to nse 
the pistol or the knife, he needs only to have reconrse 
to a somewhat more lingering process of tortnre, or 
starvation. 

Bnt the great distinction between the slavery of the 
ancient world and that of America is this. The Greek 
and Roman slaves, in the estimation of their masters 
and themselves, thongh slaves, were yet men. It was 
trne donbtless, as Homer says, that the day a man 
became a slave he lost half his manly virtnes. From 
the nature of things it mnst have been so; bnt man- 
hood or a portion of it, remained, though darkened 
and eclipsed, still visible. To a certain extent at least, 
in point of knowledge, accomplishments, and the de- 
velopement of mind, the slaves stood npon a level 
with the free ; and if there be something terrible in 
the idea, — terrible because we need no preparation to 
comprehend it, — of a city sacked and plundered, and 
all its inhabitants, the noblest, the wealthiest, the deli- 
cate women, as well as the hewers of wood and the 
drawers of water, sold under the hammer of a mili- 
tary auctioneer, and thence dragged into servitude, — 
we must recollect that the accomplishments, the 
knowledge, the refinement of these unhappy captives, 
furnished also many means of alleviating the calamity 
of servitude, and presently of escaping it altogether. 

The Athenian captives taken in the unlucky expe- 
dition against Syracuse, purchased their liberty by re- 
citing the verses of Euripides. Slaves first cultivated 
the art of Latin poetry, and introduced at Rome an 
imitation of the Grecian drama. Such were Plautus 
and Terence, and almost all the elder Roman poets. 
All the arts which give comfort and refinement to life, 
and the mere practice of which confers a certain so- 
cial distinction, music, poetry, literature in general, 
painting, medicine, education, and many others, were 
principally, or commonly practiced by slaves, who 



68 DESPOTISM 

thus acquired favor, fame, freedom, and finally wealth 
and social elevation. Horace, educated at Athens 
among the sons of Roman nobles, and afterwards the 
friend and intimate of the lords of the empire, and 
the delight and pride of the Roman people, was the 
son of a freedman. Emancipations were frequent 
and were favored. The slave constantly had before 
his eyes the hope and the prospect of liberty ; he thus 
had a noble object for which to live; and although 
there were in general, some political disqualifications 
which he could not expect to shake ofi" from himself, 
wealth, consideration, and all the more common ob- 
jects of human hopes and wishes, were still spread 
out before him ; and for his children — and men live 
as much for their children as for themselves, — he had 
every thing to anticipate. 

Undoubtedly the condition of the country slave, 
employed in agriculture, more nearly resembled that 
of slaves with us. But still there was an opening for 
talent and for hope. No slave was so low or misera- 
ble, that he might not aspire to freedom and to social 
elevation. 

Under this system, there existed that compromise 
between the master and the slave, which has been ex- 
plained above. If the slave lived and labored for his 
master, he also lived and labored for himself He 
was secured by custom, which is stronger and more 
effectual than law, in the enjoyment of a pectdium, or 
property of his own. The relation of master and slave 
lost to a certain degree, the character of pure despo- 
tism, and approached towards that of lord and vassal, 
patron and client ; while the frequency of emancipation 
introduced into the relation of servitude, sentiments 
totally opposite to those which naturally spring from 
it. There were gleams of benevolence and of grati- 
tude ; there was a twilight of good will. Compared 
to a condition of freedom, it was as the gray morning 
dawn, to the brilliancy of noon. Compared to the 
system of our own country, it is as that same morn- 
ing dawn to the blackness of midnight. 



IN AMERICA. 69 

It is true that we read of savage atrocities, exercis- 
ed in those ancient times, by masters towards their 
slaves. The Spartans, we are told, were accustomed 
from time to time, to send out assassins who put to 
death the boldest and most intelligent of the Helots ; 
and it is inideniable that the frequent servile insurrec- 
tions which took place in the ancient states, were sup- 
pressed and punished by a series of the most dread- 
ful cruelties. 

But these fierce acts ought to be regarded as proofs 
not so much of the degradation of the slaves, as of 
an approach on their part, towards an equality with 
their masters. No repose is so perfect as the repose 
of absolute despotism. The unfrequent and always 
trifling disturbances among the slaves of America fur- 
nish palpable evidence how sunk they are. It is only 
where a certain portion of liberty is enjoyed, that 
more begins to be strenuously claimed, or boldly 
sought. To him that hath, shall be given ; from him 
that hath not, shall be taken away, even that which 
he hath. Such servile insurrections as take place in 
America, are faint flashes of folly or despair. The 
insurrections of slaves in ancient times, were the 
promptings of genius and of hope. 

Had tlie Greek and Roman masters been the same 
indolent, scattered, untrained, unready people as are 
the American planters, such were tlie means, the 
courage, the spirit of their slaves that they could not 
have retained their dominion for a day. In those 
times the free were all soldiers. War was their con- 
stant study and pursuit. They lived too in cities, 
ready to combine and act at a moment's warning. 
Thus they were able, by constant preparation, and su- 
perior means, aided as they were by the moral causes 
above enumerated, to maintain their authority over 
slaves, enjoying an intellectual equality with them- 
selves. Under the Roman empire, the standing army 
by which the emperors maintained their authority, 
served also to hold the slaves in subjection. Besides, 
the masters had a strong body of firm friends and 



70 DESPOTISM 

allies in the numerous class of freedraen. The emanci- 
pations constantly going on would soon, in fact, have 
put an end to the condition of servitude, had not the 
numbers of the enslaved been kept good by fresh im- 
portations and purchases. When at length these im- 
portations ceased, slavery in towns and cities soon 
came to an end ; the slavery of the country was 
changed into villanage, and villanage ended at last, in 
liberty. 

To a certain extent, many of these observations ap- 
ply to slaver J'' as it exists in Brazil and Spanish Ame- 
rica. However disastrous may be the social condi- 
tion of those countries, it is not destitute of allevia- 
tions. The slave is at least regarded as a man, and 
is always cheered by the prospect and the hope of free- 
dom. His efforts to obtain it by purchase, by gaining 
the good will of his master, or by other peaceable 
means, are encouraged by the laws and by public 
opinion ; and if he attempt to qualify himself for the 
more advantageous possession of it, so laudable an 
ambition is approved and applauded. 

In America, so far as the slaves are concerned, there 
prevails a totally different system. It is laid down, 
as an indisputable maxim, that the freedom, the equal- 
ity, the moral and social elevation of the servile class, 
or any of its members, are totally inconsistent with 
the dignity, the interest, the existence even of the 
privileged order. That contempt, that antipathy, that 
disgust which the degraded condition of servitude na- 
turally inspires, is sedulously aggravated by the whole 
course of education, and is artfully, though impercep- 
tibly, transferred from condition to race ; and to crown 
the whole, the idea is earnestly and industriously incul- 
cated, that these suggestions of prejudice and igno- 
rance, are the very innate promptings of nature. 

In consequence, the natural sympathies of human- 
ity are first smothered and then extinguished. The 
privileged cease to consider the servile class as belong- 
ing to the same scale of being with themselves. The 
slaves in the estimate of their masters, lose all the at- 



IN AMERICA. 71 

tributes of humanity. The kindest, the most tender- 
hearted, the most philanthropic of the privileged or- 
der, learn to be perfectly satisfied when the animal 
wants of the servile class are tolerably provided for. 
To make any account of their mental wants. — that is, 
to entertain the idea that they are men, — is consid- 
ered an absurd, a misplaced and a fanatical tender- 
ness, certain, if persevered in, to uproot the founda- 
tions of society, and to end in results indeterminate, 
but terrible. 

For the slaves are regarded not merely as animals, 
but as animals of the wildest and most ferocious char- 
acter. They are thought to be like tigers, trained to 
draw the plough, whom nothing but fear, the whip, and 
constant watchfulness, keep at all in subjection; who 
would take advantage of the slightest relaxation of the 
discipline that restrains them, to break away from their 
unvvTiUing labors ; and who if left to themselves, would 
quickly recover their savage nature, and find no en- 
joyment except to riot in blood. 

Whether or not there is any thing of reason and 
trutli in these ideas, is not now the question. Suffice 
it to say, that they are universally prevalent throughout 
the southern states. They are the received, the author- 
ized, the established creed. They are interwoven into 
the very frame work of society ; laws, customs, chari- 
ties, morals, and religion, all are modified by them. 
Doubtless there are men of reflection and discernment, 
and men in whom a warm benevolence supplies the 
place of reflection and discernment, who perceive more 
or less clearly, the monstrous and extravagant absurdi- 
ty of these popular ideas. But for their lives they 
dare not whisper the suspicion of a doubt. To do so 
would be high treason against the authority of the 
privileged order, — an order as jealous, fretful and 
suspicious as ever was the aristocracy of Venice ; and 
as apt to punish too, on vague suspicion, without a 
trial, or a responsible accuser. 

It is plain that emancipation can form no part of 
such a system. In South Carolina, Georgia, Alaba- 



72 DESPOTISM 

ma and Mississippi, no master can emancipate his 
slave, except with the express permission of the state 
legislature, a permission not easily to be obtained. In 
North Carolina and Tennessee, the em.ancipating mas- 
ter must have the approbation and consent of the 
County Court. In Virginia, he must remove the 
emancipated slave, beyond the limits of the State. In 
Maryland a similar law prevails. In Kentucky, Mis- 
souri and Louisiana, the master still retains the right of 
emancipation under certain restrictions. But through- 
out all the slave states, this exertion of power — the 
only act of justice which the owner of slaves, in his 
character of owner, is able to perform — is totally dis- 
couraged by public opinion. The emancipated class 
is studiously subjected to mortifications and disabili- 
ties without number. They are considered as noxious 
vermin whose extermination is required for the com- 
fort and security of the privileged order. They are 
hunted down by legislative enactments as bears and 
foxes are in other states ; and by depriving them of all 
the rights of citizenship, advantages of society, and 
opportunities for labor, the attempt is made to ren- 
der them if possible, even more miserable than the 
slaves. These efforts have been to a certain extent, 
successful. The condition of the emancipated class, 
would seem to be wretched enough to satisfy their 
worst enemies. Yet wretched as they are, still they 
are envied by the slaves. What conclusive evidence 
of the miseries of servitude ! 

Some few emancipations occasionally take place; 
but it is obvious that the value of the boon is exceed- 
ingly diminished, by the miserable condition to which 
the emancipated class is studiously reduced. As to 
passing from the unprivileged into the privileged or- 
der, that is a thing entirely out of the question. No 
slave can expect it for himself, for his children, or 
even for his remotest posterity. The feeling which 
exists upon this subject throughout the South, is a 
perfect fanaticism. In one or two rare instances, a 
good-natured master has attempted to elevate his own 



IN AMERICA. 73 

children, born of slave mothers, to the rank of free- 
dom. But in every such case, the penalty of setting- 
public opinion at defiance, has been dearly paid. The 
transgressor has been assailed in every form of ridi- 
cule, and reproach; he has been pursued with the 
most inveterate malice; has been overwhelmed with 
torrents of obloquy; and held up to public scorn and 
indignation, as a blasphemous violator of the decen- 
cies of life and the sacred laws of nature. 

Here is the point at which the slaves of the United 
States sink into a depth of misery, which even the 
imagination can hardly measure. What is life with- 
out hope ? All men of reflection, whether poets or 
philosophers, have agreed, that life even in the better 
aspects of it, if we did but see things as they are and 
as they will be, would be a dreary and a worthless 
thing. It is hope that cheers, supports, sustains us. 
It is in the anticipation of future joys, that we are 
happy. But what hope, what anticipations has the 
American slave? His hopes are all fears; his antici- 
pations, if he has any, are anticipations of sufl>j-ing. 
This is a state of existence which could not be endur- 
ed by cultivated or reflecting minds. The slightest 
gleam, the faintest and most uncertain glimmer, a 
hope, a chance which to all beside ourselves may ap- 
pear but the faintest, will suffice often to lead and 
guide us on, through defiles dark and gloomy as the 
valley of the shadow of death. But when that light 
goes out, that glimmer ceases, that hope expires, what 
shall save us from the horrors of despair? 
7 



74 DESPOTISM 



SECTION VIII. 

Wealth and luxury of the masters, as it affects the 
condition of slaves. 

It is a fact well worthy of consideration, that with 
the progress of wealth and luxury among the masters, 
the sufferings, the misery, the degradation of the slaves 
has been steadily aggravated ; till at length, in the 
wealthiest and most refined of our slave holding com- 
munities, a point has been reached, both in theory and 
in practice, beyond which it does not seem easy to go. 

The mildest form of American slavery is to be found, 
not among the polite and well educated citizens of 
Richmond and Charleston, but amid the rude and 
wild abodes of the Creeks, the Choctaws, the Semi- 
noles, — tribes whom we describe and stigmatize, as 
savages. 

The Indian slaves, are in many respects, almost 
upon a level with their masters. The wants of sav- 
age life are few and simple. The avarice of the mas- 
ter is not stimulated by the greediness of luxury. He 
is content with a moderate annual tribute of corn and 
other provisions ; and provided this be paid, the slave 
is left at liberty to procure it as he pleases, and to em- 
ploy his time and strength as he best sees fit. It thus 
happens that an Indian slave is sometimes richer than 
his master ; and if he have talents and ambition, 
though still a slave, he may become one of the most 
influential persons of the tribe. 

The Indian slaves are well aware how superior is 
their condition to that of the miserable sufferers, who 
labor for white masters, upon cotton and sugar planta- 
tions ; and the dread they have of that lot, as well as 
the influence they are able to exercise, may be clearly 
illustrated by the case of the Seminole war. That war, 
according to the statement of those best acquainted 
with the subject, had the following origin. It was 
not that the Indians themselves had such serious ob- 



IN AMERICA. 75 

jections to removal ; but as the time for the execution 
of the treaty approached, their country was overrun 
with speculators and adventurers from the states, who 
came partly to set up claims, true or false, to certain 
Indian slaves, on the ground that they were runa- 
ways, or the children of runaways, who had years 
ago fled to the Seminoles for protection ; and partly to 
set on foot a slave trade with the Indians, who, it was 
hoped might be induced at the moment of their re- 
moval to part with their servants for little or nothing. 
The indian slaves were filled with terror and alarm 
at this prospect of falling into the hands of white mas- 
ters; and it is believed to have been by their instiga- 
tion and encouragement, that the Seminoles were in- 
duced to resist the execution of the treaty, and to 
commence the war. 

The small planter, who can neither read nor write, 
who has been bred up in poverty and ignorance, but 
who has wandered into some new settlement and has 
earned by his own personal labor, the means to pur- 
chase two or three slaves, next to the wild indian, is 
the most mild and indulgent master. He works with 
his slaves in the field, he converses with them and 
consults them. If either of them exhibits any pecu- 
liar shrewdness or good judgment, the master per- 
ceives it, and avails himself of it; and such a slave 
often becomes his owner's chief confident and adviser. 

In his fits of drunkenness, or those bursts of passion 
to which the rude and uneducated are peculiarly lia- 
ble, such a master beats and abuses his slaves. But 
he does the same thing to his wife and children. In 
general he treats them with a certain degree of ten- 
derness and familiarity ; and as they are always about 
him, by flattery, management and importunity, they 
are able to carry a thousand points, and to secure a 
thousand indulgences. 

But as such a planter grows rich, and increases the 
number of his slaves, his feelings and his conduct 
change with his condition. He appears in the field, 
not as a laborer, but on horseback, whip in hand. He 



76 DESPOTISM 

begins to copy the airs and to imbibe the sentiments of 
his aristocratic, refined, and educated neighbors. He 
forgets the equal terms upon which he once hved with 
his slaves ; he feels himself transmuted into a being 
of a superior order, born to be idle while they were 
born to work. He ceases to have any sympathies for 
them. He learns to despise them: to hear their com- 
plaints and appeals with indifference ; and to push 
them to labors, which when he worked by their side, 
he did not exact. 

Under this new discipline, and with the frugal 
habits which he acquired in his youth, this planter's 
property rapidly increases. He becomes one of the 
wealthiest men of the neighborhood; and his son and 
heir takes rank with the choicest aristocracy. Con- 
scious of his own deficiencies in education and man- 
ners, the father secures for that son, the best instruc- 
tion he can obtain. He is sent early to school, and 
perhaps to some northern college to finish his educa- 
tion. He returns well mannered, and accomplished, 
with the refinement of sentiment and the gentle bear- 
ing which education and good company impart. The 
father dies, and the son succeeds to the inheritance. 
He has no taste for agriculture ; or if he has, he can- 
not bear the constant annoyances of a plantation. 
He leaves every thing in the hands of an overseer ; 
and is almost a perpetual absentee. 

Every reduction in the allowances to his slaves, is 
so much net addition to his own revenue. He is al- 
ways in want of money ; and as he finds it less disa- 
greeable to retrench the comforts of his slaves than 
his own luxuries, the slaves are soon reduced to the 
merest subsistence. What are their sufferings or 
complaints to him 7 He is not at home to witness or 
to hear them. He leaves the execution of his orders 
to an overseer. This overseer is desirous to secure 
the good graces of his employer. The surest way of 
doing so is, to make a great crop. For this purpose 
the quantity of land in cultivation is increased. The 
tasks are extended, and the additional labor necessary 



IN AMERICA. 11 

to their execution, is extorted by the whip. Between 
this new labor and these new punishments, the slaves 
grow insubordinate and discontented. The boldest 
and most enterprising take to the woods. They are 
pursued with guns and dogs ; retaken ; mangled with 
the lash, and loaded with fetters. These examples 
terrify the others. They submit in silence. Order is 
restored. The discipline of the plantation is spoken 
of, with admiration. The crop is unusually large. 
The owner is delighted with the result, and urgent for 
its continuance, and thus extortion and severity are 
carried to their highest pitch. 

At the same time that the physical comforts of the 
slaves are diminished, all their moral qualities are de- 
teriorated. Every bad passion is called into play. 
That state of hostility and warfare in which slavery 
orginates and consists, from being lulled, and half-qui- 
escent, becomes open and flagrant. The masters learn 
to hate the slaves, as fiercely as the slaves hate the 
masters. Presently they begin to fear them. Fear 
and hate upon both sides ! God have mercy upon 
the weaker party ! 



SECTION IX. 

Improvement in physical conditioti, as it affects the 
condition of servitude. 

Benevolence is one of those native impulses of the 
human heart, which never can be wholly eradicated ; 
and which may be seen mingling itself with actions 
that proceed from motives of a totally opposite char- 
acter. 

It is plain that the whole system of slavery is in 
violation of the dictates of benevolence ; yet no impar- 
tial observer, who has resided in the southern states 
7# 



78 DESPOTISM 

of America, attempts to deny, that mingled with all 
its wrongs and crimes, there may be perceived, in 
many cases, much kind feeling on the part of the 
masters. Indeed it is out of this fringe of benevolence 
with which the dark garment of slavery is more or 
less scantily ornamented, that most of its defenders 
have woven the frail texture of their apologies. 

This benevolence however is of a very limited char- 
acter. It is confined almost entirely to physical con- 
dition. It conforms itself to the established sentiment 
of the country ; it considers the slaves not in their 
character of human beings, of men, but merely as 
animals. 

It is asserted that within the last twenty or thirty 
years, as the tobacco cultivation has declined in Vir- 
ginia, there has been a great amelioration in the treat- 
ment of slaves. Many benevolent individuals have 
exerted themselves to bring about this state of things, 
by creating in the public mind a spirit of reprobation 
against instances of excessive cruelty. It may be ob- 
served in passing, that this amelioration in the treat- 
ment of the Virginia slaves, is a strong confirmation 
of the doctrines of the preceding chapter. As the 
masters have grown poor, and have been obliged to 
retrench their splendors and their luxury, at the same 
time, they have grown comparatively humane. 

The Kentuckians boast, that of all the American 
masters, they are the kindest and the best ; and they 
take to themselves no little credit, for the liberal sup- 
ply of food and clothing which they bestow upon 
their servants, and the moderate labor which they de- 
mand. 

This course of treatment, so much applauded by its 
authors, is worthy of all approbation on the score. of 
domestic economy. It is also gratifying to the hu- 
mane feelings of all those persons of sensibility, to 
whom the constant presence of visible suffering, is the 
source of emotions far from agreeable. But when we 
consider the matter a little deeper, when we see how 
this merely physical kindness operates upon the Intel- 



IN AMERICA. 79 

lect and the heart, we may well doubt whether this 
sort of benevolence, however well intended, and how- 
ever on that account worthy of applause, does not in 
fact, greatly aggravate the miseries of servitude. 

So long as men are constantly pressed by merely 
physical wants, those wants absorb almost their whole 
attention. The peculiar attributes of humanity, are 
scantily, or not at all, developed. They have the 
form and the aspect of men, but in character they are 
little more than mere animals ; and the gratification 
of their animal wants occapies their total attention. 

But so soon as these merely physical necessities are 
satisfied, the mental and moral attributes begin to un- 
fold themselves. The passions bud and blossom ; the 
feelings, the desires, the aspirations of manhood dis- 
play their various forms and colors. If they might 
bear their natural fruits, those fruits would be good 
and wholesome. But crushed, withered, blasted, 
plucked up as it were by the roots, their premature 
decay evolves a deadly miasm, which poisons the 
soul, corrodes the heart, and sets the brain on fire. 

Let us consider this matter more minutely. We 
read in ancient fables and eastern tales, of men trans- 
formed by the power of magic into beasts. Here is 
an operation of an analogous kind. Here are men 
who have advanced so far as to feel that they are 
men, whom law, custom, prejudice, and the potent 
force of public opinion, confine to the condition of 
mere beasts of labor. The more their humanity de- 
velopes itself, and the more conscious of it they be- 
come, the more irritating and oppressive this condi- 
tion must be. To be penned up, driven to labor, and 
foddered by the hand of a master. — and what conse- 
quence is it though the fodder b? plentiful, and the 
labor be light 1 — to be repulsed from that condition 
of manhood to which they now begin ardently to as- 
pire ; to be expelled from the circle of social emula- 
tion and made mere counters in a game, of which 
they so long themselves to be the players ; to be de- 
spised, scorned, and degraded into a fellowship with 



80 DESPOTISM 

the beasts they drive ; forbidden to indulge their na- 
tural and irrepressible inclinations ; prisoners though 
at large ; forever watched ; forever thwarted ; ag- 
grieved still further by the constant spectacle of 
privileges, enjoyments, objects and pursuits to share 
in which they cannot even dream, but which increase 
in estimated value, with the hopelessness of their at- 
tainment ; — what wonder, if in souls so beset with 
grievous temptations, there should spring up and 
grow, a fierce envy, a desperate hate, an impotent in- 
dignation preying on itself, a dark, ferocious, restless 
spirit of revenge, which delay irritates, concealment 
sharpens, and fear embitters 'I What wonder, if all 
the mild feelings which soften man, and make him ca- 
pable of happiness himself, and of conferring happiness 
on others, — are choaked and blasted by a rank 
growth of deadly passions ; and that he, who under 
better auspices, might have been an ornament and a 
benefactor to society, becomes a plague to others, a 
torment to himself? 

Such are the effects v/hich must inevitably be pro- 
duced, upon that sensitive and irritable disposition, 
the usual accompaniment of genius ; and the same 
effects, to a greater or less extent, may be expected to 
result in the case of every slave, whose physical wants 
are so far satisfied, that he becomes capable of reflec- 
tion, and passes from the narrov/ circle of animal 
desire, into the boundless amphitheatre of human 
wishes. 

Would it promote the happiness of our domestic 
animals, our horses and our oxen, supposing them to 
remain in their present external conduion, to endow 
them with the passions and the intellect of men 7 Who 
will maintain the affirmative of a proposition so ab- 
surd ? Yet the attempt to alleviate the condition of 
slavery, merely by improving the physical condition 
of the slaves, is an attempt, the absurdity of which, 
if it be less obvious, is precisely of the same nature. 

Keep your slaves pinched with hunger and worn 
down with fatigue, and they remain merely animals, 



IN AMERICA. 81 

or very little more. They suffer it is true ; but they 
suffer as animals. There is a certain fixed limit to 
their misery. It has its intervals of cessation. The 
imagination has no power over it. What it is, it is. 
The present is the whole ; for the past is forgotten, 
and the future is not anticipated. 

But satisfy their hunger ; put them physically at 
ease ; give them leisure for thought, — and you create 
new sufferings more bitter than those you have re- 
moved. The man finds that yoke intolerable, of 
which the animal hardly perceived the existence. 
For two or three wants that you have relieved, you 
have created twenty others, or caused them to be felt, 
wants incessant, unquiet, unappeaseable ; and for 
these wants there is no remedy, — no remedy, while 
you remain a master, and they slaves ! After the 
sybil had cast two volumes into the fire, the third 
remained, as costly and as precious as all the three. 
In like manner, the chain of servitude loses none of 
its weight, by parting with a portion of its links. 
While one remains, that one is heavy as the whole ! 
Nay, heavier; — and as it dwindles to the sight, still 
it peirces deeper to the soul ; it frets and ulcerates the 
heart. At first it only bound the limbs ; but now it 
penetrates, and with its murderous touch, tortures the 
vitals ! 

It is a common remark at the South, that the more 
intelligent a slave is, the more unquiet, dangerous, 
and troublesome he is. The remark is just. The 
more intelhgent a slave is, the more greviously he 
feels the yoke of slavery. If a master then, through 
indulgence towards his slaves, has placed them in a 
situation of comparative physical comfort, so far from 
having a reason for stopping at that point, it becomes 
more imperatively his duty to go on. By dohig what 
he has done, he has sharpened the appetite for liber- 
ty; and this appetite which he has sharpened, is he 
not the more urgently called upon to gratify 7 

Let it not be said that this argument is no bet- 
ter than an apology for a system of hard labor and 



82 DESPOTISM 

Starvation, nor let any man so use it. God forbid ! 
Those are obvious cruelties; and so clearly percepti- 
ble to the senses, that no man of common humanity, 
however thoughtless and unobservant, can fail to per- 
ceive them ; and no man of common sensibility can 
bear to inflict them. I have desired to call attention 
to sufferings of another kind — mental sufferings, — not 
so obvious, yet far more excruciating; slavery's se- 
cond growth, a rank and poisonous growth, more 
deadly than the first. 

I have desired to point to the slave-holder, the fear- 
ful dilemma by which he is hemmed in. The moment 
he ceases to inflict tortures at which his sensibilities 
revolt, the moment he yields to those prayers for mer- 
cy which his own heart re-echoes to him, at that very 
moment he becomes the author of new sufferings ten 
times more severe, than those he puts a stop to. He 
irritates while attempting to soothe ; and the oil which 
he drops into the wounds of servitude becomes a bit- 
ter and acrid poison. 

This is one of those cases in which all must be 
done, or nothing. Half measures, palliatives, do but 
inflame the disease. The only cure for slavery, is, 
freedom ! 



CHAPTER SECOND. 

POLITICAL RESULTS OF THE SLAVE-HOLDING SYSTEM. 



SECTION I. 

General View of the Subject. 

The great objects aimed at, or which should be 
aimed at, in the political constitution of a government, 
are 1st, Security, 2nd, Freedom, 3d, Ecpiality. 

Security has two principal branches, of which one 
relates to the person, and the other to property. A 
good degree of security in both these respects, is es- 
sential to the comfort, and to the advancement of 
society. 

Freedom is either political or civil. Political Free- 
dom, consists in a participation, more or less direct, in 
the appointment of magistrates, the enactment of laws, 
and other public acts. Civil Freedom depends upon 
the supremacy of the laws. It guarantees every citi- 
zen against arbitrary and capricious interference. It 
admits of no punishments except according to exist- 
ing statutes ; and it allows the enactment of no law 
founded upon any other reason than the public good. 

£'^?/a/i^y divides itself into three sorts ; 1st, Political 
Equality, or the equal participation in political priv- 
ileges, and the equal chance to enjoy political power; — 
in other words the perfection of political freedom; 2nd, 
Equality of property, or the most equal distribution, 
consistent with security, of the wealth already exist- 
ing, and the equal chance to produce or acquire new 
wealth ; 3d, Social Equality, or the equal chance of 
acquiring estimation and regard by the exhibition of 



84 DESPOTISM 

amiable and ui^eful qualities, or the performance of 
meritorious actions. 

Now so far as regards the unprivileged class of the 
community, it is obvious at a single glance, that the 
constitutions of the Southern States, fail totally, in se- 
curing any one of the above objects. They not only 
fail, but they do worse ; they make a deliberate sacri- 
fice of them all. 

This sacrifice is said to be necessary in order to se- 
cure the well being of the privileged class. If in fact 
it is so, it must needs be confessed that the alternative 
is verj'- unfortimate. The Southern people, if we al- 
low this necessity, are in the unhappy predicament of 
a savage tribe of which one half, iti order to sustain 
existence, are driven to kill and to devour the other 
half Before we can admit the necessity of any such 
horrible experiment, every other means must first 
have been tried, and must have failed. What should 
we think of a tribe of ravages Avho lived fat and com- 
fortable upon the blood and flesh of their brethren, 
without the slightest attempt to devise any other 
means of subsistence; and who repulsed with impa- 
tient anger and bitter reproaches, the benevolent ef- 
forts of those who would point out to them a more 
decent and innocent way? 

It is clear that so far as the unprivileged class are 
concerned, the political results of slavery are most 
disastrous. Slaves suffer at one and the same time, 
all the worst evils of tyranny and of anarchy. The 
laws so far as they are concerned, are all penal ; they 
impose a multitude of obligations, but they create no 
rights. The compendious definition of a slave is, a 
man, who has no rights, but with respect to whom the 
rights of his owner are unlimited. If the law in some 
respects, seems to protect him, it is not in his charac- 
ter of a man, but in his character of a thing, a piece 
of property. Exactly the same protection which the 
law extends to a slave, it extends to a dog, a horse, 
or a writing desk. The master does as he pleases 
with either. If any other person undertakes to dam- 



IN AMERICA. 85 

age, steal, or destroy them, he is answerable to the 
owner, and is punished not as a violator of personal 
rights, but for having disregarded the laws of prop- 
erty. 

The constant sacrifice of so many human victims, 
amounting in several states of the American Union to 
a majority of the population, — such a sweeping depri- 
vation of rights as the slave-holding states exhibit, if 
it can be justified at all, must find that justification in 
some vast amount of good, which that sacrifice pro- 
duces. This good must be principally sought for 
among the privileged class. If it exist at all it must 
be either political, — by increasing the security, free- 
dom and equality of the privileged class ; economical, 
— by increasing weakh, comfort and civilization ; or 
personal, — by its beneficial influences on individual 
character. When Mr. McDuffee pronounces slavery 
the best and only sure foundation of a free govern- 
ment, if he has any meaning at all, if this declaration 
be any thing more than a passionate paradox, — he 
must mean to imply, that the political consequences 
of slavery are of a kind highly beneficial to the mas- 
ter ; in f^ict so beneficial to the master as to form a 
counterpoise, and more than a counterpoise to all the 
evils it inflicts upon the slave. It becomes tlien an 
important question, what are the effects which slave- 
ry produces upon the political, economical, and per- 
sonal condition of the privileged class? And in the 
first place of its political results. 



86 DESPOTISM 

SECTION II. 

Slavery, as it affects the security of the privileged class. 

I. We will consider in the first place how the secu- 
rity of property is affected by the institution of sla- 
very. 

Property is better secured in proportion as a greater 
part of the population is made to feel a direct interest 
in its security. The moral force of opinion in this as 
in other cases, has an efficacy greater than law. L^aws 
unsustained by public opinion can only be enforced 
by a great and constant exertion of physical power. 

1. With regard to the slave holding states, a large 
part of the population, to wit, the slaves, so far from 
having any personal interest in upholding the laws of 
property, have a direct and powerful interest the other 
M'-ay. The laws of property in their eyes, so far from 
being designed to promote the public good, and to con- 
fer a benefit upon all, are but a cunningly devised 
system by means of which the character and the name 
of Right is bestowed upon the rankest injustice, and 
the most flagrant usurpation. This attempt to mono- 
polize the benefits of property, this system by which 
a large portion of the community are not only depri- 
ved of those benefits but are actually themselves con- 
verted into articles of property, has the necessary 
effect to create in the very bosom of the community, 
a state of feeling utterly hostile to security. Slaves are 
universally depredators upon the property of their 
masters. Such depredation they regard as perfectly 
justifiable and even praiseworthy. It requires the 
most incessant vigilance to guard against it, nor 
will the most incessant vigilance always suffice. The 
security of the slave-master is the security of a house- 
keeper who knows that he entertains a gang of thieves 
upon his premises, and who is in constant apprehen- 
sion of being robbed. 

Nor is this systematic spirit of plunder confined to 



IN AMERICA. 87 

the unprivileged class. It embraces also the large 
class of free traders who gain tlieir livelihood by a 
traffic in stolen goods. It is these persons who offer 
inducement for a large part of the depredations which 
the slaves commit upon their masters. These depre- 
dations, though small in the individual instances, are 
enormous in the total amount. The extreme severity 
with which the laws of the southern states visit the 
offence of trading with slaves in articles suspected to 
be stolen, and the terrible outrages occasionally com- 
mitted upon this sort of offenders by planters who 
think the inflictions of the law to be too mild, or too 
uncertain, are a sufficient proof in how serious a light 
these depredations are regarded. 

2. By the institution of slavery, the slaves them- 
selves become the chief article of property. Property 
of all kinds has a certain tendency to take wings to 
itself and fly away. This is peculiarly the case with 
slave property. In addition to all the other acci- 
dents to which slaves, hi common with other species of 
property, are exposed, they have a propensity to im- 
poverish their masters by absconding. How frequent- 
ly this propensity comes into exercise, any body may 
learn by examining the columns of the southern news- 
papers. Of the slaves that run away, the greater part 
are recovered: this is true, but still the master is a 
loser. He loses their services during their absence. — 
often at the most critical moment of the crop, — besides 
the expense of their apprehension and conveyance 
home, including the reward offered, which in itself is 
often equal to half the money value of the slave. 

3. Many slaves submit with great reluctance to the 
station and duties which the law assigns to them. To 
keep these unquiet creatures in due subordination, it 
becomes necessary to wound, to maim, and sometimes 
to kill them. This chance of loss takes away in a 
certain degree, from the security of this kind of pro- 
perty. 

4. We come now to a cause of insecurity of a more 
serious character than any yet enumerated. Property 



88 DESPOTISM 

in slaves is not a kind of property generally acknow- 
ledged. There are whole nations Avho deny that any 
such kind of property onght to exist. All the most 
enlightened people in the world are precisely of that 
opinion. Within the last fifty years, an effort has 
been begun, — an effort which every day gathers new 
force and earnestness, — for the total abolition of this 
kind of property. The alarm which this effort pro- 
duces among the holders of slaves is natural, and it is 
great. An alarm exists at all times among slave- 
holders, because there is always a certain apprehen- 
sion lest the slaves themselves may reclaim their 
liberty by force. But that alarm reaches an extreme 
height when it is known that there are other persons, 
over whom the slave-masters have no control, who 
sympathize with the slaves, and who profess the inten- 
tion of using every moral means to bring about their 
emancipation. Moral mcaiis is a phrase which slave- 
masters find it difficult to understand. Force, violence^ 
is the only means with which they are famihar ; and 
this means which they themselves so constantly em- 
ploy, they naturally apprehend, will be used against 
them. The degree of alarm thus produced, is suffi- 
ciently indicated by the ferocity with which the per- 
sons called abolitionists, have been assailed by the 
slave-holders, and by the savage barbarities exercised 
upon such abolitionists, or supposed abolitionists, as 
have fallen into their hands; exercised generally upon 
mere suspicion, and with hardly any evidence that 
the sufferers were guilty of entertaining the opinions 
ascribed to them. 

Thus it appears that luider a constitution authoriz- 
ing slavery, one of the chief items of property, name- 
ly, slave property, from its very nature, its total want 
of any foundation of mutual benefit, is peculiarly inse- 
cure ; and this insecurity spreads to every other kind 
of property, because the institution of slavery, by its 
necessary effect destroys all respect for property of 
any kind, in a large part of the population, and also 
creates a vast number of depredators. 



IN AMERICA. 89 

II. We come now to that branch of Security, 
which relates to the person. 

Here again the privileged class of a slave holding 
community are beset with alarms and dangers. These 
dangers and alarms are of two kinds, — dangers from 
the slaves, dangers from one another. 

1. Dangers from the slaves. The master retains his 
authority only by the constant exercise of violent 
means. This violence is liable at any time to be re- 
torted upon himself. The subjugation and cowardice 
of those over whom he tyrannizes, affords the master 
a certain degree of security. But passion often sup- 
plies the place of courage ; and Ave frequently hear of 
terrible acts of vengeance committed upon the person 
or family of the master, by outraged and infuriated 
servants. 

But this danger is trifling compared with that anti- 
cipated, from a rising of the servile class. Every two 
or three years the report of an insurrection, real or 
imaginary, spreads the most frantic terror through the 
southern states. The antics enacted upon such occa- 
sions, would be in the highest degree farcical, did 
they not generally terminate in bloody tragedies. 
Men who are individually brave, and who would 
march to the assault of a battery without flinching, 
work each other into a complete paroxism of fear. A 
single negro seen in the woods with a gun upon his 
shoulder, suflices to put a whole village to flight. 
Half-a-dozen unintelligible words overheard and 
treasured up by some evesdropping overseer, or invent- 
ed perhaps by some miscreant, who delights himself 
with the public alarm, are enough to throw all the 
southern states into commotion, and to bring nights of 
agony and sleeplessness to hundreds of thousands. 
But this is not the worst of it. When terror makes 
cowards it always makes bloody-minded cowards. 

Blood ! blood ! — nothing else can appease the gene- 
ral alarm. Committees of safety with the most abso- 
lute authority, are every where established. On these 
committees sit many a village Tinville, many a rustic 
8* 



90 DESPOTISM 

Danton. Before these tribunals the unhappy victims 
are dragged ; accusation and condemnation keep close 
company. Hanging, shooting, and burning become 
the order of the day. The headlong ferocity of these 
proceedings betrays the greatness of that alarm which 
produces them. 

It has been shown in another place, that notwith- 
standing the extreme degree of terror to which the 
apprehension of slave vengeance gives rise throughout 
the south, the actual danger is by no means propor- 
tionately great. Many causes contribute to this dis- 
proportion, of which one leading one is, a secret con- 
sciousness of the cruel injustice of slavery. Tyranny 
is ever timid, always full of fears. 

2. Danger from one another. In this case, the alarm 
is less, but the danger is more real. Throughout the 
greater part of the southern states it is considered es- 
sential to personal safety, to carry concealed weapons. 
This single fact shows that personal security is at the 
lowest ebb. When a man must protect himself, for 
what is he indebted to the laws ? These weapons arc 
no doubt carried partly as a protection against the 
slaves ; but they are chiefly used, in quarrels between 
freemen. Of these quarrels the laws take but little 
notice. In such a case it is considered the mark of a 
mean spirit to appeal to the law. If I am assaulted 
or beaten, it is expected that I stab or shoot the ag- 
gressor. In several of the southern states it seems to 
make very little difference, whether I challenge him 
to a duel, or assault him without previous notice given, 
in a tavern, or the streets. Murders are constantly 
committed in this way. For the most part they go 
entirely unpunished, or if punished at all, it is only 
by a short imprisonment, or a trifling fine. They fix 
no imputation upon a man's character. Persons guilty 
of homicide are to be met with in the best society of 
the southern states. If it be inquired what is the con- 
nection between this condition of manners and the 
existence of slavery, the answer is, that the imperious 
ferocity of temper which the exercise of despotic 



IN AMERICA. 91 

power produces or inflames, is the main cause of the 
existence and the toleration of an insecurity of person 
and a recklessness of human hfe, such as hardly else- 
where prevails in the most barbarous countries. 

But even this is not the worst aspect of the case. 
The panic terror which the rumor of an insurrection 
produces at the south has been already mentioned. 
That terror levels all distinction between slaves and 
freemen, and so long as it lasts, no man's person is 
secure. During the period of the Mississippi insurrec- 
tion, or pretended insurrection, in the summer of 1835, 
the committee of safety appointed upon that occasion, 
by a tumultuous popular assembly, were vested with 
ample authority " to try, acquit, condemn, and punish 
white or black, who should be charged before them." 
By virtue of this commission, the committee proceeded 
to try a large number of persons, principally white 
men, accused of having instigated, or favored the al- 
leged intended insurrection. Many of those tried 
were found guilty, and were hung upon the spot. A 
great many others were cruelly whipped, and were 
ordered to quit the state in twenty-four hours. 

The case of Mr. Sharkey will clearly exhibit the 
degree of personal security existing in the state of 
Mississippi at that time. Mr. Sharkey was a magis- 
trate, and in the exercise of his legal authority, he set 
at liberty three men, of whose entire innocence of the 
charges alleged against them he was well assured, 
although they had been seized by the pursuivants of 
the committee of safety. This gentleman was a plant- 
er, a man of property, a large slave-holder, brother 
to the chief justice of the state, — a person not very 
likely to be implicated in a slave insurrection. But 
his opposition to the despotic authority of the com- 
mittee was considered to be plenary proof of guilt, 
and a large party was sent to arrest him. Mr. Shar- 
key had no relish for being hung upon suspicion ; so 
he barricadoed his doors, built fires about his house, 
in order that the darkness of the night might not con- 
ceal the approach of the pursuivants, wrapped his 



92 DESPOTISM 

infafit child in the bed clothes to save it from the bul- 
lets, loaded his mviskets, and quietly waited the at- 
tack. His left hand was dreadfully shattered by the 
first fire of the assailants; but he succeeded in killing 
their leader, in wounding several of the rest, and in 
compelling a retreat. By this time his friends and 
connections began to collect about him, and a party 
was formed in his favor. Had he been less wealthy, 
or less influential, he would inevitably have perished. 



SECTION III. 

Slavery as it affects the liberty of the privileged class. 

One of the chief branches of civil liberty consists 
in the unrestricted disposal of one's property'-. There 
are restrictions which are necessary; but the more 
these restrictions are multiplied, the more is liberty 
restrained. 

By the institution of slavery, slaves become one of 
the principal kinds of property; but in the free dis- 
posal of this kind of property, the slave-master at the 
South is very much restricted. The "sacred rights 
of property," as to which he is apt to be so eloquent, 
with regard to that very subject-matter with respect 
to which he considers them most sacred, are closely 
restrained by laws of his own enacting. 

To set a slave free, is certainly the highest act of 
ownership ; the only one indeed which a truly virtuous 
man ought to exercise ; and certainly the last one 
which a person of any manly spirit would be willing 
to surrender. But in the greater part of the southern 
states, the master is deprived by law of the right of 
emancipation. Here certainly is a most grievous in- 
fringement upon liberty. 

The right to improve one's property so as to increase 



IN ahirrica. 93 

its productiveness and give it an additional value, is an 
essential part of civil liberty. But this is a right of 
which, as respects his slaves, the southern master is 
in a great degree deprived. In most of the slave 
states it is a highly penal offence to teach a slave to 
read. Now reading and writing are essential to many 
employments. These accomplishments, and others 
which by their means the slave might acquire, would 
greatly tend to enhance his value, by makmg him 
capable of more valuable services. But the master is 
not allov/ed to improve his property in this way. The 
law interferes to prevent it. 

Considering slaves merely as property, here are two 
grievous infringements upon the master's liberty. But 
consider them as men, and the infringement upon the 
master's freedom of action is still more intolerable. 
I am deprived by law of the capacity to be benevolent 
and just. I am ready to confer upon a fellow being 
the highest boon which man can give or receive ; — 
but the laws do not permit me to confer it. Perhaps 
the slave is my own child. No matter: he shall re- 
main a slave to the day of his death, unless I can 
obtain as a particular grace and favor, a special per- 
mission to set him free. Is this liberty? Is not the 
servitude of the father as miserable almost as that 
of the son '? 

The authors of these laws have plainly perceived 
that the natural dictates of himianity are at war with 
the institution of slavery ; and that if left to their own 
operation, sooner or later, they would accomplish its 
overthrow. To perpetuate the slavery of the un- 
privileged class, they have fettered up those senti- 
ments of the human heart, which are the foundation 
of morality and of all the charities of life. For the 
sake of brutalizing others, they have sought to bar- 
barize themselves. 

Liberty of opinion, liberty of speech, and liberty of 
the press do not exist in the southern states of the 
American Union, any more than imder any other 
despotism. No doubt there are some subjects which 



94 DESPOTISM 

may be very freely discussed there ; but the same is 
the case under all despotisms. Any body may freely 
discuss at Rome or Moscow, the merits and demerits of 
American slavery. The only prohibited subjects are^ 
the plans of government and systems of policy upheld 
by the pope or the czar. So at Charleston or Rich- 
mond, one is at full Uberty to discuss subjects having 
no obvious bearing upon the political system and 
social condition of Virginia or South Carolina. But 
approach that subject, lisp the word, slavery ; dare to 
insinuate that the existing system of southern society 
is not the best possible system ; assail ever so cau- 
tiously the tyranny of the slave-masters ; point out 
ever so temperately the inevitable wretchedness of 
the slaves, and you will soon be taught that despotism 
is as jealous, as watchful, and as fierce, in America 
as in Europe. 

The discussion of this prohibited subject is not only 
visited by severe legal penalties, under pretence that it 
has a tendency to produce insurrections, — the same 
reason, by the way, which is given at Rome and Mos- 
cow, — but it is still more effectually suppressed by the 
terrors of Lynch law, a system of procedure, which 
in cases of this sort is either openly countenanced, or 
secretly abetted by the gravest jurists of the South. 

Not only is discussion prevented, but it is dangerous 
to receive, to read, even to have in possession, any 
book, pamphlet or newspaper which has been en- 
rolled in the Index Expiirgatorins of the slave-holding 
Inquisition, or which, though not proscribed byname, 
appears to treat upon the evils of slavery and their 
remedies. 

The United States post-office at Charleston was 
violently assaulted by a mob, headed by the principal 
inhabitants of the city, and a large part of its con- 
tents publicly burnt, under pretence that among the 
newspapers and pamphlets contained in it, there were 
some of an insurrectionary character. 

At Richmond a bookseller received a box of books 
containing copies of a certain work compiled by a 



IN AMEBICA. 95 

Virginia clergyman, to aid the Colonization Society. 
It was principally made up of extracts from speeches 
delivered in the Virginia House of Delegates in favor 
of a project for the gradual abolition of slavery by 
shipping off the slaves to Africa, broached shortly 
after the Southampton insurrection. This book was 
denounced as incendiary by the Richmond Com- 
mittee of Safety, and by their order all the copies 
were delivered up, and burnt in the public square. 

In the District of Columbia an imlucky botanist 
happened to have among his papers used for the pre- 
servation of plants, some copies of a prohibited news- 
paper. He was arrested, almost torn in pieces by the 
mob, thrown into prison where he lay upwards of six 
months, and it was with great difficulty that his ac- 
quittal was obtained. 

It is a curious fact that at the very moment at 
which the Richmond Whig was assailing Louis 
Phillippe and his ministers for their restrictions upon 
the French press, the Journal des Debats was defend- 
ing those restrictions by the example of Virginia ! It 
must be confessed that the French restrictions are per- 
fect liberty, compared with the law and practice of 
the southern states. 

The Secret Tribunal of Venice, which received anon- 
ymous accusations, and wliich proceeded to judgement 
without notice given to the culprit, has been always 
denounced as an institution the most hostile to liberty 
that can possibly be imagined. Tribunals very simi- 
lar, and in many respects much more to be dreaded, 
exist throughout almost the whole of the slave-holding 
states. They pervade the country and hold all the 
citizens in awe. The punishments inflicted are of the 
most dreaded kind,— death by the gallows or a slow 
fire, banishment, scourging, tar and feathers. This 
jurisdiction is known as Lynch law, and the accusers, 
judges and executioners are generally the same per- 
sons. As was the case with the Secret Tribunal, it 
confines itself principally to state crimes, that is, to 
such actions as are supposed to have a tendency to 



96 DESPOTISM 

overthrow the existing system of despotism. This 
system of Lynch law which sprung into existence 
among the barbarous settlers of the backwoods, where 
no law existed, and which was invented by them as 
a substitute for law, has of late been introduced into 
the oldest and most civilized of the slave states, and 
has been made to supercede the regular administration 
of justice in a variety of the most serious and im- 
portant cases. The terrcJr of this tribunal is sufficient 
to preserve a dead silence at the South, and to pro- 
duce an apparent unanimity of opinion. There are 
no doubt numbers who still entertain the opinions of 
Washington, of Henry, and of Jefferson upon the sub- 
ject of slavery ; but no one dares in public or in private 
to utter those opinions. No one known or suspected 
to be an abolitionist, — and this word at the South ob- 
tains a very extensive signification, — ever reside or 
even travel in the slave states without imminent dan- 
ger. Such, under a system of despotism, is the lib- 
erty even of those called free. 



SECTION IV. 
Slavery in its infliience upon Equality. 

Equality it has been stated, may be considered under 
three points of view, Political Equality^ Social Equal- 
ity, and Equality of Wealth. 

Political and social equality are essentially depend- 
ent upon equality of wealth. The truth of this ob- 
servation is confirmed by universal experience. Those 
who possess the property of a country, have always 
succeeded in obtaining the political power. Revolu- 
tions of property have always produced political revo- 
lutions. 

Look for example to the history of England. So 



IN AMERICA. 97 

long as the wealth of that country consisted princi- 
pally in land, and that land was possessed by a few 
feudal and ecclesiastical barons, the whole political 
power of the country was in their hands. Towns 
having sprung into existence, inhabited by artisans 
and traders, whose industry created a new species of 
wealth, these towns presently attained a representa- 
tion in the national legislature. Their influence at 
first was trifling; but it has steadily increased with 
the increase of manufacturing and commercial wealth, 
till now it has become almost predominant. 

The history of France furnishes proof to the same 
point. So long as the nobility, the clergy and the 
magistraiure, possessed the larger portion of property, 
they found no difficulty in maintaining their political 
superiority. But the progress of events presently 
threw a preponderancy of wealth into the hands of the 
tleis eiat. This had no sooner happened, than those 
who possessed the preponderancy of wealth, began to 
devise means for obtaining the preponderancy of po- 
litical power. Hence the French Revolution, v/hich 
has resulted in putting the government into the hands 
of the more wealthy proprietors of the country. That 
government however will hardly stand unless its basis 
be enlarged, and a greater number of property holders 
be permitted to participate in it. 

If in the Northern States of the American Union 
there exists a degree of political equality of which 
the world offers no other example on so large a scale, 
the equal distribution of property throughout those 
states, is not less striking and remarkable. 

It is an observation as curious as it is important, 
that in countries in which industry is respectable, and 
wliere tlie fruits of labor are secure, property always 
tends towards an equal distribution. Everyman pos- 
sesses as a means of acquirement, his own labor ; and 
though there be a very considerable diflerence in the 
capacity, the industry, the good fortune of individuals, 
yet this difference has its limits; and diversities of ac- 
quisition are still more limited; for in general the in- 
9 



98 DESPOTISM 

dustry of the rich man is relaxed ; he is more inchned 
to spend than to accumulate ; while the poor man is 
still stimulated by the desire of acquisition. 

It appears then that in civilized communities, the 
natural tendency of things is towards equality. In- 
equality can only be maintained by artificial means; 
by laws which give to some individuals exclusive ad- 
vantages not possessed by others, such as laws of 
primogeniture, of entail, laws conferring hereditary 
rights and privileges ; laws creating monopolies of 
any and every kind. 

If political equality be dependent upon equality of 
wealth, social equality is equally dependent upon it. 
Social distinctions which appear to spring from other 
sources, rise in fact from this, and by means of this 
are kept m activity. Blood and family are esteemed 
of great importance, and according to a vulgar notion 
which we hear every day repeated, are said to afford 
a much nobler and more respectable aristocracy, than 
that of mere wealth. But the founder of every noble 
family was first rich before he became noble. It is 
his wealth transmitted to his descendants to which 
they are principally indebted for distinction. When 
they become poor they soon fall into contempt. This 
is so well understood that whenever a Marlborough or 
a Wellington is raised to the highest rank of the peer- 
age for services or supposed services rendered to his 
country, an estate is bestowed by parliament, to ac- 
company the title. 

Equality in general, may be resolved into equality 
of wealth. All depends upon that. 

Now it is a fact clear and indisputable, that the ex- 
istence of slavery in a country, is the surest and most 
inevitable means of producing and maintaining an 
inequality of wealth. This is not said with any re- 
ference to the unprivileged class, who are to be regard- 
ed in this view not as men, but merely as things. 
Reference is had only to the free. Slavery necessarily 
produces a great inequality of wealth among the free. 

The method of this operation is obvious. The la- 



IN AMERICA. 99 

bor of each individual, is as we have seen, the natural 
and origmal source of individual wealth. But when 
a man is enabled to possess himself of the fruits pro- 
dticed by the labor of a large number of individuals, 
to ivhoin he is not obliged to make any compensation 
beyond a bare stijqiort^ his wealth tends to increase in 
a vast and disproportionate ratio, over the wealth of 
that individual who relies solely upon his own labor. 

Moreover slaves are a sort of property much less 
valuable when held in small portions, than when pos- 
sessed in masses. Where four or five hundred slaves 
are owned together, the doctrine of chances may be 
applied to the numerous casualties to which this kind 
of property is liable. The average annual loss and 
gain itnder ordinary circumstancs will be pretty regti- 
lar, and may be made a subject of calculation, liut 
the owner of only four or five slaves may at any time 
lose them all by a sudden disorder. They may all be 
taken sick at the same time, and the crop may perish 
for want of hands to tend it. They may all run 
away together. The income expected from them is 
thus liable to fail entirely, and the poor man is con- 
stantly thrown back in his attempts to accumulate, by 
the necessity he is under of investing liis gains, or a 
considerable part of them, in a species of property 
which when possessed in small quantities, is pectdiar- 
ly insecure.* 

But there is another effect of the existence of slav- 
ery in a community, much more extensive and power- 
ful in its operation. Wherever slavery exists, la- 
bor comes to share the degradation and contempt of 
servitude, while idleness is regarded as the peculiar 
badge of freedom. But when idleness is general, the 
great mass of the community, must inevitably be poor. 
In every country the number of those who inherit 
any considerable portion of wealth, is small. Per- 
sonal industry is the only resource of the great bulk 
of the citizens. Where labor is honorable, it proves 

* See Chapter Til. Sec. IT. for additional and important reasons of 
the tendency of slave-holding property to accumulate in a few hands. 



100 DESPOTISM 

to the prudent and industrious, a resource sufficient 
not only for support, but for the accumulai.ion of 
wealth. When labor is not honorable, the mass of the 
citizens rather than degrade themselves by submitting 
to it, Avill be content with the merest subsistence. 
Thus it happens that in countries in which slavery 
has existed for a considerable length of time, the citi- 
zens are divided into two classes, of which the first 
and much the smaller, comprises a few rich proprie- 
tors who at the same time are large slave-holders, 
while the second class contains the great mass of the 
free people, persons of little property, or none at all. 

This was the state of society in all the republics of 
ancient Greece. Those republics were constantly di- 
vided into two parties or factions. The oligarchical or 
aristocratic party, composed of the few rich and their 
immediate connections and dependents, and the demo- 
cratic party, as it was called, composed of the bulk of 
poor freemen, headed and led on by some ambitious 
deserter from the aristocratic ranks. The history of 
ancient Greece consists for the most part, in the mu- 
tual struggle of these two parties. In general, the 
aristocratic party had the ascendency ; wlien the op- 
posite fiiction came into power, it was only by a sort 
of accident commonly of very limited duration. 

This serves to explain a curious part of ancient his- 
tory, to which we have no parallel in modern times, 
namely, the frequent projects for an artificial distri- 
bution of property, and of laws for the remission of 
debts. It was clearly perceived by many politicians 
of antiquit}^, that a certain equality of wealth was 
absolutely essential to political equality. They saw 
that the nominal equality of all the citizens amounted 
to but little, so long as all the wealth of the state was 
possessed by a few, and the great bulk of the citizens 
not only had nothing, but were even deeply in debt to 
the few rich. Hence the \'arious projects for abolish- 
ing debts, prohibiting usury, limiting the amount of 
property which any individual might possess, and 
making new and equal distributions of existing wealth. 



IN AMERICA. 101 

But these schemes did not touch the root of the evil. 
So long as slavery existed, it was a natural and inev- 
itable consequence that all property, however equally 
it might at first be divided, should presently concen- 
trate in the hands of a few, leaving the mass, idle and 
poor, — poor, because idle. 

The operation of the same cause is very evident 
in the history of the Roman Republic. A few patri- 
cians were possessed of enormous wealth, counting 
their slaves by tens of thousands, and owning almost 
entire provinces, while the great bulk of the citizens 
were in a state of the most deplorable poverty, depend- 
ing for their support upon distributions of corn from 
the public granaries, upon gratuities bestowed upon 
the commonality by the ambitious rich, and on the 
pay a!id plunder of the military service. 

Such are some of the instances which history af- 
fords, of the natural effect of slavery in concentrating 
wealth in a few hands, and in reducing the mass of 
the free, to poverty and political degradation. His- 
tory also furnishes instances of the contrary process, 
by which liberty has given a spring to industry, and 
has thus operated to disseminate wealth, and to create 
an intermediate body between the rich and the poor, 
a body wliich with the increase of civilization and 
knowledge, is destined perhaps to embrace the great 
mass of mankind. About the tenth century of the 
christian era the greater part of Europe was reduced 
by a combination of causes, to a most barbarous con- 
dition. A few great lords, who were in fact little bet- 
ter than so many Tartar or African chiefs of the pre- 
sent day, possessed all the land, the only sort of ])ro- 
perty v/hich remained in existence. This land was 
cultivated by slaves. The mass of the free population 
depended for its support upon the bounty of the feudal 
chiefs, which bounty was repaid by the constant at- 
tendance and warlike services of those who received 
it. The sole occupation of the free, was, hunting and 
war. 

In this state of things we can discover no element 
9# 



102 DESPOTISM 

of social improvement. What then has changed the 
condition of Europe to the state of comparative ad-. 
vancement in which we now see it? A few serfs 
flying from the tyranny of their lords, founded here 
and there, a little settlement. They built walls to 
protect themselves from feudal aggression. In many 
cases they resorted to some ancient city, a remnant of 
former times, dwindled to a ruin, but which their in- 
dustry helped to repair, and their courage to defend. 
They applied themselves to the mechanic arts and to 
trade. Gradually they amassed wealth. In tliese 
cities slavery was not tolerated, and tlie serfs of the 
neighborhood found first protection, and presently 
citizenship. These cities thus fpunded and thus built 
up, are the origin of that great class of merchants, 
manufacturers, and industrious men, to Avhom Europe 
is indebted for its present advancement, and on whom 
its future hopes depend. 

The same tendency of servitude to produce great 
inequalities of condition among the free is as visible 
in the history of America as of Europe. The insur- 
rection of the slaves of St. Domingo had for its imme- 
diate occasion a violent quarrel between the aristoc- 
racy of rich planters, and the petit blacks or poor 
ivhites. While these two factions Avere engaged in 
a bloody contest for political ascendency, the slaves 
seized the opportunity to reclaim their liberties. 

Slavery produces the same effects in the southern 
states of the American union, which it ever has pro- 
duced in all the world beside. Several cases have 
hitherto operated to retard, or to disguise these effects, 
but they are becoming every day more and more 
visible. 

The poor whites of the old slave states have hitherto 
found a resource in emigration. All of them who had 
any spirit of enterprise and industry have quitted a 
home where labor was disgraceful, and in the wide 
regions beyond the mountains have attained a com- 
fortable livelihood, and have amassed wealth by means 
which however innocent or laudable, they could not 



IN AMKRICA. 103 

employ in the places where they were born, without 
a certain degree of self-abasement. But by a fatal 
oversiglit. a most disastrous ignorance, they omitted 
to excliule that great source of evil, the bitter effects 
of whicli they had experienced in their own persons ; 
and that same train of causes is now in full operation 
in Kentucky and Tennessee, Missouri and Arkansas, 
which drove the original settlers of those states from 
Maryland, Virginia, and North Carolina. 

As to the southwestern states, they offer no re- 
sources to the poor whites. The cultivation of cotton 
has attracted thither, and still continues to attract, a 
host of slave-masters, and whole gangs of slaves. No 
man can emigrate to those states who expects to live by 
the labor of his hands, unless he is prepared to brave 
that very ignominy, and to plunge anew into that very 
social condition which makes him uneasy, and cuts 
him off from all chance of advancement at home. 

Political parties in the slave-holding states, within 
a few years past, have begun to assume an aspect en- 
tirely new, and one which gives fearful omen that 
these slave-holding republics are about to follow in 
the career of those ancient states, whose policy was 
founded, like theirs, upon a system of slavery. There 
is already, throughout most or all of the slave-holding 
states, an aristocratic party, and a party which calls 
itself democratic. The aristocratic party is composed 
of the rich planters, and of those whom their wealth 
enables them to influence and control. The demo- 
cratic party, so called, is composed in a great measure 
of the poo}^ white folks, with a sprinkling of ambitious 
aristocrats for leaders. This miscalled democratic 
party, — for it is in fact only a faction of the white 
aristocracy, — by the natural operation of the slave- 
holding system, is rapidly increasing in numbers, and 
with the increase of its nimibers, the social degrada- 
tion and the destitution of its members will also in- 
crease. Measures of enlightened policy are hardly to 
be expected from such a party, even if it could obtain 
power and keep it, which indeed is hardly to be ex- 



104 DESPOTISM 

pected. Such is the force of habit, the power of preju- 
dice, the invincible stupidity of ignorance that these 
people seem incapable of perceiving the real cause 
of their own degradation. They are apparently as 
much attached to slavery and are as ardent in its 
support as is the aristocratic party, thus regarding 
with a blind and fatal reverence those very institu- 
tions which crush them to the dust. The influence, 
however, of such a party, composed of men, poor, 
degraded, ignorant and ferocious, and headed by some 
desperate Catiline of the aristocracy, may at times, 
prove extremely disastrous, not to the southern states 
alone, but to the whole union. 



SECTION V. 

Education in the Slave-holding States. 

That the state ought to provide for all its citizens 
the means of at least that primary education which 
consists in the knowledge of reading and writing, has 
come to be a political maxim generally acted upon in 
all civilized communities. Even such despotic gov- 
ernments as Austria and Prussia have admitted this 
most important article into their political code ; and 
primary instruction is provided by those governments 
for all the people at the public expense. This shows 
the progress which the idea of equality has lately 
made ; for erpiality of knowledge is a most essential 
part of political and social equality. 

The despotisms existing in the southern states of 
the American Union, are almost wholly regardless of 
this important political duty of general education. 
We have already seen that so far as regards the un- 
privileged class, the attempt to impart any instruction 
to them, so far from being considered a duty, is de- 



IN AIMERICA. 103 

nounced as a crime. There are also obvious reasons 
why no general public provision for the education, of 
the privileged class has ever been established. 

The privileged class consists, as we have seen, of 
an oligarchy of rich planters, and a comparatively 
large body of persons with little or no property. The 
rich planter.s know the value of education, and their 
wealth enables them to secure it for their own children 
by the employment of private tutors, or by sending 
them to schools and colleges at the North. The poor 
whites, bred up m ignorance, have no adequate idea 
of the value of knowledge, or of the importance of its 
dit^usion. The rich planters have no inclination to 
tax themselves for the benefit of their poor neighbors. 
Their wealth, education and influence, enables them' 
to control the legislation of their respective states; 
and perhaps they imagine that they shall best secure 
their own importance and political power, by keeping 
the mass of the free population in ignorance. The 
same stroke of policy which they play ofl' against their 
slaves, they play off also against their poorer fellow 
citizens. 

What has been done in a public way for the ad- 
vancement of education in the southern states, has 
consisted almost entirely in the establishment of col- 
leges, — institutions of but little use to the mass of the 
population, and which are almost exclusively fre- 
quented by the sons of the rich planters. For this 
purpose money has been liberally appropriated. 

It is true that in Virginia, South Carolina, and per- 
haps in some otlier of the slave-holding states, a trifling 
sum is annually appropriated expressly for the educa- 
tion of poor children. But the very form of this ap- 
propriation, which extorts from those who wish to 
avail themselves of it, a humiliating coniession of 
poverty, is an insult to those for whose benefit it is 
intended. That aid which might be justly demanded 
as a right, is made to assume the character of a charity. 
Besides, the amount of these appropriations is so small, 
and their management is so miserable, that little or no 
benefit results. 



106 DESPOTISM 

The facts of the case then, appear to be these. Not 
one of the slave-holding states possesses any thing like 
a regular system of common schools, or has made any 
provision at all worthy of notice, for disseminating 
the rudiments of education among its citizens. In- 
equality of wealth has produced, as a natural conse- 
quence, inequality of knowledge. 

This condition of things tends greatly to aggra- 
vate the social and political inequalities which pre- 
vail throughout the southern states. It is in vain 
that people who cannot read, boast of their political 
rights. There is no power more easily abused for the 
promotion of private ends, than the power conferred 
by superior knowledge. A man who cannot read, 
may be said to be poUtically blind. Those who see 
may miss the way, but the blind have hardly a chance 
to find it. Nothing is more easy than leading them 
into the pit, and thus making them the instruments 
of their own destruction. It is the extreme ignorance 
of those who compose what is called the democratic 
party at the South, which incapacitates that party 
from projecting and carrying through any real and 
useful reforms in the social polity of those states, and 
which converts it into the mere tool and stepping-stone 
of artful and ambitious men, who insinuate them- 
selves into its confidence, and then employ that con- 
fidence for the accomplishment of their merely private 
ends. In the nature of things, the aristocracy of rich 
planters, as they possess all the wealth and all the 
knowledge, will succeed, in the long run, in usurping 
the whole political power. As might be expected, 
South Carolina, the state in which slavery is most 
predominant, is also the state in which the aristocracy 
of rich planters domineers without control. Already 
the doctrine, sanctioned by the constitution of that 
state, that every freeman is entitled to vote at elec- 
tions, is violently assailed by the leaders of the aris- 
tocratic faction. They insist upon a property qualifi- 
cation. It is easy to see whither this doctrine will 
lead. By the concentration of wealth in few hands, 



IN AMERICA. 



107 



which is the natural result of slavery, the number of 
those who possess the requisite qualifications, will 
continue to diminish, till at last the whole political 
power concentrates in form, as it now does in fact, 
in the hands of a little oligarchy of rich slave-holders. 
But though the equality secured to all freemen by 
the constitutions of the slave-holding states, is little 
more than nominal, though the few wealthy and well 
informed, generally succeed in obtaining the political 
control, and then employ it to promote their own pri- 
vate ends, it is not, therefore, to be hastily concluded 
that the constitutional rights of the poor freemen are 
valueless, or that the loss of those rights Vvnth v/hich 
they are threatened, is not a thing to be most seriously 
deprecated. Having a vote at elections, every free- 
man, however humble his condition, is sure of being 
treated with a certain degree of respect. If the mass 
of the people are cajoled out of their votes, they still 
receive for them a sort of equivalent, in kind words 
and fair speeches. Let them be deprived of this title 
to consideration, and the native insolence of power 
would soon display itself, and they would be trampled 
under foot with the same remorseless violence now 
exercised upon the free blacks and the slaves. 



SECTION VI. 

The military strength of the Slave-holding States. 

The military strength of states, has ever been es- 
teemed of the highest importance in a political point 
of view; since it is upon their military strength that 
states are often obliged to depend for their defence 
against internal, as well as external foes. In this 
particular the slave-holding states of the South pre- 
sent an aspect of extreme weakness. 



108 DESPOTISM 

When all the inhabitants of a country have arms 
in their hands, and are ready and zealous to meet and 
repulse any invader, the military strength of a coun- 
try may be said to be at the highest pomt, for experi- 
ence has abundantly demonstrated how easy it is to 
transform citizens into soldiers. But those citizens 
who are capable of being transformed into soldiers 
must be principally drafted from the laborious classes 
of society. The hardy cultivators of the soil, when 
driven to the dire necessity of beating their plough 
shares into swords, have ever furnished the best and 
most patriotic soldiers, — soldiers, who after repulsing 
the hostile invader, have willingly resumed again the 
useful labors of their former calling. Men of this class 
composed those armies of the revolution to whose cour- 
age, fortitude and patient spirit of endurance, we are 
indebted for our national independence. 

But in the slave states, these cultivators of the earth, 
these very men upon whom reliance ouglit to be prin- 
cipally placed in the hour of danger, would in that 
hour, be regarded with more dread and terror even 
than the invaders themselves. In case of a threaten- 
ed invasion, so far from aiding in the defence of the 
country, they would create a powerful diversion in 
favor of the enemy. 

When the French, in the iirst years of the revolu- 
tion, marched into the neighboring countries proclaim- 
ing "liberty and equality," they were received with 
such good will on the part of the inhabitants as en- 
sured a speedy triumph, notwithstanding the superior 
force arrayed to resist tlieir progress. The events of 
those wars placed in a strong light, the fact obvious 
enough in itself, but which had not then attracted 
sufficient attention, that the inclination of the inhab- 
itants of a country is much more apt to decide its fate, 
than the strength of armies in the field. When half 
the inhabitants of a country wish success to invaders, 
it is not easy to resist them. 

Considering the odious light in which slavery is 
now regarded by all civilized nations, it is not likely, 



IN AMERICA. 109 

in case the United States became involved in war 
with any people of Europe, that any repugnance would 
be felt on the part of the hostile state, in seeking aid 
at the hands of the slaves. A lodgement being effect- 
ed upon some part of the Southern coast, by an army 
of respectable strength, and emancipation being pro- 
mised to all such slaves as would join the invaders, a 
force would soon be accumulated which the unassist- 
ed efforts of the slave-holding states would find it im- 
possible to resist. If the invaders were expelled it 
would only be by troops marched from the North. In 
such a crisis the fear of outbreaks on their own plant- 
ations would keep the planters at home; or if they 
assembled in force to resist the invaders, their absence 
would be likely to produce such outbreaks. AVhen 
a servile was added to a foreign war, betv/een the 
rage of the masters and the hatred of the slaves, it 
would assume a most savage aspect. 

According to Colonel Napier, in his work entitled 
" England and her Colonies" an experiment of this 
sort was projected during the war of 1812, and no- 
thing but the fact that Great Britain at that time, had 
slave colonies of her own, prevented it from being car- 
ried into effect. 

The difficulty of raising troops in the slave-holding 
states is obvious from the fact, that Massachusetts 
alone furnished more soldiers to the revalutionary ar- 
mies, than all the slave-holding states united. The 
obstacles in the way of raising troops in those states, 
have greatly increased since that time. 

The military weakness of a slave-holding commu- 
nity was strikingly illustrated in the capture of the 
city of Washington by the British in 1814. Could 
such an army have marched such a distance, and ef- 
fected such destruction in any of the free states? To 
that question let Concord and Lexington reply. Had 
the slaves of those counties through which the British 
army marched, been free citizens, had not Washing- 
ton itself been a slave market, the British troops would 
never have arrived within sight of the capitol. 
10 



110 DESPOTISM 

Should the slave-holding states become involved in 
a war, which it would be necessary for them to pro- 
secute from their own resources, they would be oblig- 
ed to depend upon a standing army levied from among 
the dregs of the population. Such an army would be 
likely to become quite as much an object of terror to 
those for whose defence it would be levied, as to those 
against whom it would be raised. It would not be 
easy to disband an army composed of men destitute 
of every other resource, but who had found in mil- 
itary service a means of living at the expense of 
others. It would be insisted, and with some show of 
justice too, that the country was bound to maintain 
and provide for those to whom it was indebted for de- 
fence and even existence. 

One other observation will place the military weak- 
ness of the slave-holding states in a clear point of 
view. They are dependent for all manufactured arti- 
cles upon foreign supply. Even the very tools with 
which the plantations are cultivated, are furnished 
from abroad. Every article of equipment necessary 
to enable an army to take the field, must be imported, 
and unless their agricultural productions can be freely 
exported in return, they have no means whereby to 
purchase, or to pay. The coast of the slave-holding 
states is but scantily furnished with harbors ; all the 
trade of export and import, centres at a few points. 
These points may be easily blockaded by a small na- 
val force. The slave states have no facilities for 
equipping or manning a fleet. In a naval warfare, 
half a dozen of the fishing towns of New England 
might compete with the whole of them, and a strict 
blockade of their harbors for three or four years, would 
reduce the whole of the Southern States to a condi- 
tion of the greatest distress. 

In point of miUtary strength the slave-holding states 
are not by any means all to be placed upon the same 
level. Such states as Kentucky and Tennessee where 
the proportion of slaves is small, are very strong in 
comparison with Carolina 5nd Louisiana, where the 
unprivileged class form a majority of the population. 



CHAPTER THIRD. 

ECONOMICAL RESULTS OF THE SLAVE-HOLDING SYSTEM. 

SECTION I. 

Effect of Slavery upo7i the Sources of Wealth. 

The public wealth consists in the sum total of the 
wealth possessed by all the individual members of 
the community. Generally speaking a community is 
wealthy in proportion to the relative number of its 
members who are possessors of property. A few very 
rich men may make a great show, and create a false 
impression as to the wealth of a community ; but a 
large number of small properties added together will 
far outrun the sum total of a few large ones. The 
pay of the officers of an army is very large compared 
with that of the rank and file ; but the sum total of 
the pay of the rank and file, far exceeds in amount 
the sum total of the pay of the officers. 

That the slave states of the American Union are 
excessively poor compared with the free states, is con- 
ceded on all hands. The slaves, forming in some of 
the states, the majority of the population, are incapa- 
ble of holding property. They are not the owners 
even of their own labor, and of course they can con- 
tribute nothing to the sum total of the public wealth. 
The class of poor whites, including a large proportion 
of the free population, are possessed of a very trifling 
property. Almost the entire capital of the country is 
in the hands of a comparatively small number of 
slave-holders ; and of the property which they possess, 
a great portion consists in-^the minds and muscles of 
the unprivileged class. In free communities, every 



112 DESPOTISM 

man is the proprietor of his own muscles and intel- 
lect ; but as these commodities however valuable, are 
not the subject of bargain and sale in the market, they 
are not usually reckoned as property. Compare the 
tax valuations of the slave-holding states with that of 
the free states, and it will be discovered, that almost 
the only kind of property, in the usual acceptation of 
that word, which exists at the South, is, the land, and 
the buildings upon it. Exclude the slaves, and the 
amount of what is called personal property existing 
in those states, is exceedingly small ; and upon exam- 
ination it will be found to fall greatly short of the 
amount of debt always due to the North and to Eu- 
rope. 

In estimating the actual wealth of the slave-hold- 
ing states, the amount of this debt ought always to be 
taken into account. A great part of the banking capi- 
tal of those states is borrowed ; and so of the money 
invested in rail-roads and other public works. A 
large proportion of the planters have beside great pri- 
vate debts of their own, secured by mortgage upon 
th^ir plantations and slaves, many of them being lit- 
tle better than tenants at will to some northern capi- 
talist, to whom all their property in fact belongs. 

As the Southern States possess advantages of soil 
and climate peculiar to themselves, it becomes an in- 
teresting inquiry, what is the cause of this compara- 
tive poverty ? 

1. Political economists have generally agreed that 
labor is the sole source of wealth. Whether this doc- 
trine be literally and absolutely true, may perhaps be 
doubted ; it is however beyond all doubt, that labor 
is a very principal source of value. 

The great motive to labor, the great inducement to 
exertion, that motive, that inducement which has 
raised man from the primitive barbarism of the woods 
to such degrees of refinement and civilization as have 
yet been attained, has been, expectation of reicard. 
There is in this motive a sort of creative power, which 
seems to give new strength and alacrity. It even 



IN AMERICA. 113 

possesses the capacity of ma-king labor delightful. The 
only other motive powerful enough to overcome the 
natural indolence of man, is the fear of punisJiment ; 
but that is a melancholy and miserable motive which 
seems to add a new distastefulness to labor, and to 
wither up the energies of those whom it influences. 

Now with respect to the whole unprivileged class, 
that is to say the principal laboring class in the slave- 
holding states, their only motive to industry, is this 
second, this enfeebling motive, the fear of punishment. 
Their labor is compulsive and reluctant, and its results 
are proportionably small. 

With respect to the other laboring class at the south, 
to wit, the poor whites, their industry is paralyzed by 
a fatal prejudice which regards manual labor as the 
badge of a servile condition, and therefore as disgrace- 
ful, — a prejudice which not even the expectation of 
reward is strong enough to overcome. It is a preju- 
dice similar to this which has operated in no small 
degree to keep Spain in a stationary state, two centu- 
ries behind the civilization of the rest of Europe. But 
even Spain in this respect, is more fortunate than the 
American slave holding states. It is the mechanic 
arts which the Spaniards regard as derogatory, 
whereas agriculture is comparatively respectable. In 
the slave holding states of America, agricultural labor 
is the most derogatory of all, because the labor of the 
field most assimilates the condition of a freeman to 
that of a slave. Whenever such notions prevail, they 
are fatal to public prosperity. Poverty keeps pace 
with pride. 

Take the slave-holding stales together, and the free 
inhabitants are about twice as numerous as the slaves. 
Yet all the great articles of production in which the 
wealth of the slave-holding states consists, cotton, to- 
bacco, rice, sugar and flour, are produced almost ex- 
clusively by slave labor. 

What then is the occupation of the free 7 One class, 
the larger slave-masters, contribute absolutely nothing 
to the public stock. They hardly bestow a thought 
10* 



114 DESPOTISM 

even upon the management of their own estates. 
Their sole business is, to receive the income and to 
spend it. Another class of the free population ob- 
tain a livelihood by acting as overseers or viceroys 
for their richer neighbors. They are thus saved from 
the degradation of manual labor ; but it is a hard ser- 
vice by which they earn their bread. So hard, that it 
is very seldom performed to the satisfaction of their 
employers. The planters give a terrible character of 
the overseers as a class. According to their account, 
the overseers as a general rule, are ignorant, stupid, 
obstinate, negligent, drunken and dishonest. For 
their ignorance they are hardly to blame, considering 
what scanty means of education this class enjoys. 
Stupidity and obstinacy are the natural fruits of igno- 
rance. Negligence and drunkenness they learn from 
their employers ; and if overseers are dishonest it is 
little to be wondered at, considering the temptations 
and opportunities by which they are surrounded, and 
the total confusion of all ideas of right and wrong, 
justice and injustice, which the nature of their employ- 
ment is hkely to produce. 

The third and largest division of the privileged 
class, compelled by absolute want to the disgraceful 
necessity of manual labor, work with an unwilling- 
ness as great as that of the slaves, and with still less 
of efficiency. The produce of their labor is very small. 
In general it is hardly sufficient to support them in 
that rude and semi-barbarous condition to which they 
have been accustomed. 

The disastrous effects of slave-holding upon free 
industry, are particularly obvious in the families of 
the small planters, and of those farmers who possess 
but five or six slaves. These slaves suffice to perform 
the labors of the farm, and when the laud is fertile 
the owner of it lives in a rustic plenty. A family of 
sons grows up around him. He has no occasion for 
their assistance on the farm, and if he had, they would 
regard the labor as an intolerable disgrace. The boys 
grow up in idleness, with little or no education, be- 



IN AMRftlCA. 115 

cause there is no system of public instruction, and the 
father cannot aflbrd to send them to a distance in pur- 
suit of schools. They arrive at man's estate without 
having been bred to any regular employment. Each 
has his horse, his dog and his gun ; and while the father 
lives the sons have a home; they spend their time in 
hunting, or in riding about the country, or at horse- 
races, frolics, barbecues, or political meetings. There 
are thousands of young men in Kentucky and Tennes- 
see in this unhappy predicament. Full of spirit and 
ambition, active, capable, eager for some honorable 
employment; but condemned by the social system of 
which they form a part, and by the unhappy prejudi- 
ces against useful industry which that system engen- 
ders, to an idleness which presently becomes as irk- 
some to themselves, as it is fatal to the public pros- 
perity. When habit has made indolence inveterate, 
and when they are too old to apply themselves with 
zeal or success to a new course of life, the death of 
the father cuts off the support they have hitherto en- 
joyed. His property divided among a numerous fam- 
ily, gives but a pittance to each. That pittance is 
soon spent. Want stares the unhappy sufferers in the 
face. They lose by degrees their standing and re- 
spectability. The weaker spirited among them sink 
down to the lowest depths of poverty and vice. Those 
of more energy emigrate to the new states of the far 
west, and having escaped the charmed circle in which 
they were so long bound up, they develope a new 
character, and like their fathers before them, by means 
of their own personal industry, they bring a farm into 
cultivation and gradually acquire wealth. But if they 
have settled in a slave state, that wealth is generally 
invested in slaves ; and their own children are bred 
up in that same style of helpless indolence of which 
they themselves were so near becoming the victims, 
and which their children perhaps will not so fortunate- 
ly escape. 

Thus it appears that one plain and obvious effect of 
the slave-holding system is, to deaden in every class 



116 DESPOTISM 

of society that spirit of itidustry essential to the in- 
crease of pubhc weahh. 

2. The spirit of industry is not however alone suf- 
ficient for the accumulation of property. Industry 
quickens production ; but to accumulate, it is neces- 
sary not only to produce but to save. Economy then, 
may justly be regarded as the second great source of 
public wealth. 

But to expect any thing like economy from the un- 
privileged class, would be extremely ridiculous. Econ- 
omy is like industry, it is like every other virtue, — it 
never will be exercised unless there is a motive con- 
stantly operating to produce it. Now in the condition 
of servitude no such motive exists. In fact, the mo- 
tives are all the other way. The slave receives from 
his master a certain weekly allowance of food. Any 
attempt to lay by a part of it, would be absurd, for 
as soon as a store was accumulated, the master, if he 
discovered it, would stop the allowance till that store 
was consumed ; or at all events, he would immediate- 
ly diminish an allowance which experience had shown 
to be more than sufficient. It would be the same with 
respect to clothing. But why dwell upon this topic? 
Is it not plain that he who is incapable of possessing 
property is alike destitute of motives to produce or to 
save 1 

If slaves are improvident with respect to themselves, 
it is not remarkable that they are still more so, with 
respect to their owners. No matter what occurs ; if 
the cotton house is on fire ; if the fences are down, 
and the cattle destroy the corn ; if the horses stray 
away ; if the tools are lost or broken ; it there hap- 
pens one or all the thousand accidents which are al- 
ways liable to diminish the value of their master's 
property, and which a little care or foresight might 
have prevented, — any or all of these occurrences are 
a matter of perfect unconcern to the slave, nor will he 
voluntarily lift a finger to prevent them. If indeed he 
has any feeling about the matter, it is rather an in- 
clination to destroy than to save. He experiences a 



IN AMERICA. 117 

secret delight, in the losses and sorrows of a master 
whom he hates. 

Nor is economy likely to be practiced to any con- 
siderable extent by the hireling overseers to whom the 
management of the great plantations is intrusted. 
These overseers are frequently changed, and they 
have little or no interest in the economical manage- 
ment of the property intrusted to their charge. 

As little can we look to the conduct of the slave- 
masters for any exhibition of the virtue now under 
consideration. It is an old observation that what 
comes easy goes easy. This saying is verified by the 
conduct of brigands, pirates, and robbers, and all 
that class of men who live upon plunder. It applies 
with equal force and for the same reason, to slave- 
masters, who generally contrive to spend all they get 
and to run into debt all they can. 

We have thus seen that with respect to the slaves 
and their owners, idleness and improvidence keep 
close company. The same is the fact with respect to 
the poorer class of freemen. Though their resources be 
next to nothing, they still contrive to imitate in their 
small way, the careless extravagance of their richer 
neighbors. 

It thus appears that there is a great deficiency of 
the second principal source of public wealth, to wit, 
economy, among all classes of the population of the 
slave-holding states of America. 

3. A third great source of public wealth consists in 
invention^ by which is meant, the discovery of new 
and more productive applications of industry. But to 
call this great means of increasing the productive 
power of a community into action, industry must be 
honorable. That ingenuity which busies itself in ob- 
servations and experiments for the discovery of means 
to produce the same effect with less labor, seldom 
displays itself except in communities in which the 
useful arts are held in high esteem. Even inventions 
made elsewhere, are for the most part brought into 
use with great difficulty, in those societies in which 



118 DESPOTISM 

men of education and reflection, if such there are, 
despise useful industry, and in which the great busi- 
ness of production is intrusted to ignorant and stupid 
slaves, and to overseers equally ignorant and stupid. 
Under these circumstances every thing proceeds in the 
same dull round, without change or attempt at im- 
provement. The more men know, and the more they 
reflect, the more convinced they are how limited is 
the actual extent of their progress. Ignorance is arro- 
gant, dogmatical, certain that it knows every thing 
already. The idea of improvement does not enter into 
all its thoughts. Hence it is that the early progress 
of a people from barbarism to civilization takes place 
by such hardly perceptible steps, and is subjected to 
so many hindrances and interruptions, as almost to 
discourage the most sanguine believers in human per- 
fectability, and to have given rise to the common 
opinion that savage nations are incapable of being 
civilized ; while on the other hand, the history of our 
own age serves to show, how civilization, once set 
fairly in motion, advances with an impulse continu- 
ally accelerated, and which not even the most serious 
obstacles can long retard. 

The southern states derive no inconsiderable advan- 
tage from their close and intimate connection with the 
free states of the north, of which the social system is 
so essentially different. By this means the natural 
effect of the institutions of the south, are to a certain 
extent counteracted, especially in those newly settled 
states into which there has been a considerable influx 
of northern population. 



IN AMERICA. 119 



SECTION II. 

Slavery as it affects the amount of capital required 
for industrious U7idertakings. 

All enterprises of industry, whether agricultural, 
mechanical or mercantile, require a certain amount of 
capital for their successful prosecution. Every thing 
which enables these enterprises to be carried on with 
a less amount of capital, contributes to the increase of 
national wealth ; and on the other hand, every thing 
which causes a greater amount of capital to be re- 
quired, is an obstacle in the way of all new under- 
takings. 

In free communities, where the laborers have their 
own labor at their own disposal, and Avhere in conse- 
quence, they are ready to sell it, either by the day, 
the year, or the hour, in any quantities, that is, in 
which it may be needed, beside the fixed capital in- 
vested in lands, workshops, tools, ships, steamboats, 
(fcc, there are required two separate portions of floating 
capital, one to be invested in the stock to be operated 
upon, and the other to be employed in paying the 
wages of labor. But no more labor need be paid for 
than is actually employed. Whenever a smaller quan- 
tity will answer, a portion of the laborers may be dis- 
missed ; whenever m.ore is needed, more laborers may 
be employed. 

But in a slave-holding community, in addition to 
these three portions of capital, another and a very 
large portion is required, in order to commence any 
industrious enterprise whatever ; for though in such 
a community there is no payment of wages, yet a 
corresponding quantity of capital is necessary to fur- 
nish food, clothing, and medicines for the slaves. A 
fourth and additional portion of capital is also required, 
to be invested in the jnirchase of the laborers them- 
selves^ — a necessity which constitutes a great obstacle 
in the way of all industrious enterprises. 



120 



DESPOTISM 



Take the business of agriculture for example. In 
the new cotton-growing states, a very small sum of 
money will suffice to purchase a plantation of several 
hundred acres; but a very large sum of money is 
needed to purchase the laborers necessary to carry on 
the cultivation of it. Could laborers be hired by the 
month or the day, as in free communities, a moderate 
capital would enable the planter to command the labor 
he would need, whereas, under existing circumstances, 
no person can start a new plantation in Alabama or 
Mississippi, who is not already possessed of a large 
capital, or able to command it in the shape of loans. 

We shall fall, probably, much under the mark, if 
we assume that a capital of five thousand dollars in- 
vested in hired labor, would enable as many acres to 
be cultivated, as a capital of fifty thousand dollars 
invested in slave labor. The consequence of this 
state of things is obvious. It gives a monopoly of 
the command of labor to those who are already pos- 
sessed of large means, either in the shape of property 
or of credit. Persons of small capital have no chance 
to compete with persons of large capital, because by 
this system, a large capital is rendered absolutely 
necessary to obtain that command of labor without 
which no industrious enterprise can be carried on. 
This single fact is sufficient to explain that tendency of 
the wealth of a free community to concentrate in a few 
hands, which has been stated in a preceding chapter. 

This system not only gives a monopoly of the com- 
mand of labor to those who are already rich, but it 
is also a very wasteful and extravagant system. It 
compels the operator to purchase and to support a 
much larger number of laborers than he ordinarily 
has occasion for. He is obliged constantly to own 
and to feed the largest number ever necessary in his 
business, or else to submit, occasionally, to severe loss, 
for want of a sufficiency of labor. In the cotton 
planting business, for instance, a given number of 
slaves can cultivate a considerably larger quantity of 
cotton than they can gather in ; so that the planter is 



IN AMERICA. 121 

either obliged to submit to an annual loss of a portion 
of the crop which he has brought to maturity, or else 
to cultivate less than he otherwise might, for the sake 
of gathering all. 

The cotton crop, however, as it extends the labor 
of cultivation and gathering in, through almost the 
entire year, is less surely attended with this sort of 
loss, than are the grain crops and farm cultivation of 
the more northern slave-holding states. In those states, 
during the winter, there is comparatively little occasion 
for labor on the farms. During all that time, the capi- 
tal invested in the ownership of slaves, is unproductive, 
and the slave-master is saddled in addition with the 
expense of supporting laborers, for whose services he 
has no occasion. 

What a great discouragement to the poor, that is, to 
the great mass of the free population, this system pre- 
sents, will be evident from a few considerations. In 
those parts of the slave states in which slavery pre- 
dominates, it is impossible to hire free laborers. To 
work at all, even on one's own little tract of land, is 
considered a sufficient degradation ; but to work for 
another person, to put one's self under his direction, 
seems to approach too near to the condition of slavery, 
to be at all endurable. If a person, therefore, wishes to 
employ any other labor than his own, he must have re- 
course to slave labor. But the employment of the labor 
of other people is in general absolutely essential to the 
accumulation of wealth. Where a man merely hoards 
up the profits of his own labor, his wealth increases only 
as money does when placed at simple interest, and 
the industry and economy of a long life will accumu- 
late but a moderate sum. But if those profits are in- 
vested in the employment of the labor of other people, 
his wealth then increases like money at compound 
interest. 

But when to employ other labor than one's own, it 
is necessary to buy the laborers, a considerable sum 
must be first accumulated, before it can be employed 
at all : and as has been shown in another place, so 

n 



122 DESPOTISM 

long as the number of slaves which a person possesses, 
is small, the investment is exceedingly precarious. 

The necessity of a great capital, and the wasteful- 
ness with which that capital is employed, sufficiently 
explain the fact, why in all those occupations in which 
the industry of the free states has come into competi- 
tion with the labor of slaves, the free states have been 
able to undersell their rivals. Slave labor is only 
profitably employed in those kinds of business, such 
as the cultivation of cotton, rice, and sugar, in which 
the climate and soil of the northern states prevent 
the people of those states from engaging. In the cul- 
tivation of grain, the raising of stock, and all the 
operations of farming agriculture, the profits of the 
slave-holding cultivators are notoriously small, and 
many a large slave-holder grows poor in that same 
pursuit, which enriches the farmer of Ohio, Pennsyl- 
vania and New York, who begins life with no other 
resource than his own capacity to labor. Hence that 
heavy drain of emigration, hence that fatal domestic 
slave trade, which aggravates the poverty of the older 
of the slave states, by carrying off that labor, which 
constitutes the principal means of economical pros- 
perity. 

This same necessity for a great capital, in order to 
undertake any industrious enterprise, and the same 
necessary wastefulness in the employment of that capi- 
tal, afford also one reason among many others, why it 
has been found unprofitable to set up manufacturing 
establishments at the south. It is not only necessary 
to build your factory, and to buy your machineiy and 
stock, but before you can commence operations, you 
must expend a still larger sum in the purchase of 
laborers. Apart from everything else, a sufficient rea- 
son for the non-establishment of manufactures at the 
South, is to be found in the fact, that at the North, the 
same annual quantity of manufactured products can 
be turned out, with the employment of much less than 
half the amount of capital, which would be necessary 
for the same purpose at the South. 



IN AMERICA. 123 

SECTION HI. 
Agricultw^c in the Slave-holding States. 

If we may believe John Taylor of Carolina, the 
author of Arator, or Mr. RufRn, the ingenious editor 
of the Virginia Farmers'' Register, the best agricul- 
tural periodical ever published in the United States, 
agriculture at the South does not consist so much in 
cultivating land, as in killing it. The process is as 
follows. 

A quantity of virgin soil, in those of the slave states 
in which any such soil is yet to be found, is cleared 
up every winter. The trees are cut down and burnt, 
or merely girdled, and left to decay and fall with the 
lapse of time. When tobacco is the crop, this fresh 
land is planted with tobacco each successive year till 
its fertility is exhausted. When it will no longer pro- 
duce tobacco, it is planted with corn or wheat, till it 
vnW not afford a crop worth gathering. It is then 
turned out, that is, left un fenced and uncultivated, to 
grow up with thickets of sassafras or persimmon 
bushes, or with forests of the short-leaved pine, — a 
majestic tree in appearance, but the timber of which 
is subject to so rapid a decay, as to be of little or no 
value. 

In the cotton-growing states, corn and cotton are 
planted alternately, till the land is completely worn 
out. When its original fertility is exhausted, no fur- 
ther attempt is made at its cultivation. It is turned 
out, and the labor of the plantation is applied to new 
fields, which presently undergo a similar fate. Thus, 
every year, a certain quantity of land is given over 
as worthless, and new inroads are made upon the 
original forest. Agriculture becomes a continual pro- 
cess of opening new fields, and abandoning the old. 

This brief account of southern agriculture, will serve 
to explain the remarkable fact, that what we should 
call improved lands, that is, lands which have been 



124 DESPOTISM 

brought into cultivation, are generally of inferior value 
and price to the adjoining wild lands which must be 
cleared up before they can be planted. Every crop 
taken from a field diminishes its value ; and as the 
number of successive crops which can be taken with- 
out reducing the land to a state of barrenness, is not 
great, the diminution in its value, is sufficiently rapid. 
This is one cause of the sparseness of population at 
the south. No planter ever thinks he has land enough. 
Knowing that he destroys a quantity every year, he 
is anxious still to enlarge his domain so as to be cer- 
tain of having a supply sufficient to meet the con- 
sumption. 

Almost the only wealth in the southern states consists 
ill lands and slaves. But slaves are only valuable as 
cultivators of the soil ; and as the productive power 
of the soil diminishes, the value of slaves must decline 
with the decreasing amount which they are able to 
produce. The inevitable consequences to which this 
system of agriculture must finally lead, are sufficiently 
obvious. The soil in its whole extent, being at length 
exhausted, the slaves will hardly be able to produce 
enough for their own support. They will cease to 
possess any marketable value ; and the entire mass of 
the population will sink down into a state of misera- 
ble pov^erty, from which they can emerge only by a 
complete change of manners and habits, and a tho- 
rough revolution in the social system. 

Nor is this period by any means so distant as may 
at first appear. For though the superficial extent of 
the slave holding states is very great, the quantity of 
land which they afford of sufficient natural fertility to 
admit of being cultivated according to the southern 
method, is not great. Deduct the mountains, the mo- 
rasses and the vast pine barrens, and but a moderate 
extent of land will remain, a part of which has already 
been exhausted and deserted, and all of which, with 
the exception of some alluvial tracks, along the water 
courses, is of a description not fitted long to withstand 
the destructive processes of southern agriculture. 



IN AMERICA. 125 

This progress of pauperism, presents itself under 
very different aspects, in different states of the union, 
according to the antiquity of their settlement, and the 
density of their population. In the newer states, in 
which the proportion of virgin land is still very great, 
to a superficial view it is altogether non-apparent. 
Its early operation suggests nothing but ideas of pub- 
lic prosperity and increasing wealth. But there is a 
certain point where the tide turns. The spendthrift, 
so long as his money holds out, has the appearance 
and enjoys the reputation of abundant riches. It is 
only when his resources begin to fail, that the reality 
of his condition, and the true nature of his conduct 
become apparent. 

Virginia is the oldest of the slave states. All the 
rest are treading in her footsteps. From her unfortu- 
nate condition at the present moment it is easy to 
portend what theirs must presently become. Eastern 
Virginia, including all that portion of the state east of 
the Blue Ridge, presented to the original colonists, a 
most inviting country. Washed on one side by a spa- 
cious bay, into which poured numerous rivers, broad, 
deep and navigable, all the lower part of the state had 
received from tlie hand of nature such unusual facili- 
ties of water communication, that hardly a point could 
be found twenty miles distant from navigable waters ; 
and for the most part, every plantation had its land- 
ing place. These numerous rivers were stored and 
still continue to be stored with such an abundance of 
fish, fowl and oysters as might alone suffice to support 
a numerous population. Above the falls of the rivers 
was a hilly diversified country, generally rich, and if 
it had some barren tracts, affording spots of the most 
exuberant (ertility. 

When Eastern Virginia first began to be settled, it 
afforded beyond all question, the richest and most 
desirable country any where to be found along the 
Atlantic coast of the union. 

The cultivation of tobacco soon became so profita- 
ble, that the more industrious of the colonists grew 
11* 



126 DESPOTISM 

rich by it. Most unfortunately they invested these 
profits in the purchase of slaves from Africa. The 
introduction of slave labor presently proved fatal to 
the industry of the free. But this circumstance was 
little thought of or regarded, so long as the tobacco 
cultivation continued to increase, and to bring in rich 
returns. The wealthier planters rose to the condition 
of nabobs. They extended their plantations, increas- 
ed the number of their slaves, and spent freely the 
large incomes which their estates produced. The 
apparent wealth and prosperity of the country was 
very great. 

By degrees, the entire surface in the older portions 
of the state, had been cleared, planted and exhausted. 
Tobacco requires a rich soil, and the impoverished 
land would no longer produce it. It became neces- 
sary to abandon this species of cultivation, first in the 
tide-water districts, and afterwards in all that portion 
of the state north of the James River. The culture of 
tobacco in Virgnia is now confined, for the most part, 
to a few of the southern counties, in the vicinity of the 
Blue Ridge, in which some virgin land is still to be 
found. 

The cultivation of grain succeeded to that of tobac- 
co. These crops were far less profitable; but even 
these, when taken in constant succession from the 
same soil, are scarcely less exhausting. The lands 
have continued to deteriorate till large tracts have been 
abandoned as absolutely worthless. Meantime, a 
constant stream of emigration has been pouring out 
of Virginia. It was first directed to Kentucky, and 
the states north-west of the Ohio. It then consisted of 
the poorer portions of the white population, who were 
the first to suffer from the general decline. This emi- 
gration is now directed towards the cotton growing 
states of the south-west. It is greater than ever, and 
embraces the wealthiest men and the largest slave-hold- 
ders, who find that slave property, which is valueless 
in Virginia, except as an article of exportation, can be 
put to profitable use in the cultivation of cotton. The 



IN AMERICA. 127" 

domestic slave-trade produces another equally serious 
drain npon the population of Eastern Virginia. In 
default of crops, the planters have no other means to 
meet their expenses, except selling their slaves. This 
affords a momentary relief, but it is fatal to the per- 
manent prosperity of the country, which in losing its 
laboring men, in losing its cultivators, loses the only 
means whereby it can recover from its present decline. 

That part of Virginia which lies npon tide waters, 
presents an aspect of universal decay. Its population 
diminishes, and it sinks day by day, into a lower 
depth of exhaustion and poverty. The country be- 
tween tide waters and the Blue Ridge is fast passing 
into the same condition. Mount Vernon is a desert 
waste ; Monticello is little better ; and the same cir- 
cumstances which have desolated the lands of Wash- 
ington and .Jefferson, have impoverished every plant- 
er in the state. Hardly any have escaped save the 
owners of the rich bottom lands along James River, 
the fertility of which it seems difficult utterly to destoy. 

This thriftless system of cultivation, which consists 
in exhausting a field and then abandoning it, prevail- 
ed originally in the more northern states as well as in 
Virginia. So long as the quantity of new land ap- 
peared inexhaustible, this method of culture was a 
natural and profitable operation, and it was continued 
by habit long after its bad policy became apparent. 
Soon after the close of the revolutionary war the same 
symptoms of exhausted fertility which begun to show 
themselves in Virginia, made their appearance also in 
the more northern states. The farmers presently 
became fully sensible of the ruinous course they were 
ptirsuing, and the more intelligent began to turn their 
attention towards an improved method of cultivation. 
The custom of manuring, introduced by degrees, is 
now considered in all the older parts of the country, 
an essential part of husbandry. A proper rotation of 
crops is very generally attended to, and at present it 
is well understood, that lands under a proper system 
of cultivation ought to increase rather than decline 



128 DESPOTISM 

in fertility. In fact, within the last twenty years so 
great has been the improvement in agriculture in the 
older portions of the northern states, that the face of 
the country has assumed a new aspect, and large tracts 
which were formerly considered as naturally barren, 
and worthless, have been transformed into fertile and 
productive farms. Improvements in culture keep pace 
with increase of population, and the soil, instead of 
being constantly deteriorated, is constantly increasing 
in productiveness and value. 

Some patriotic citizens of Virginia have from time 
to time made great exertions to promote in their own 
state, an emulation of these northern improvements. 
But their well-intended efforts have utterly failed. In- 
deed they are opposed by irresitible obstacles. In the 
free states the land is portioned out into small farms, 
tilled by the hands of the owners, whose attention is 
exclusively bestowed upon the business of agriculture. 
There is a certain portion of intellect devoted to the 
improvement of every hundred acres. In Virginia the 
land is held for the most part in portions ten or twenty 
times larger, and even were the owners zealous for im- 
provement, on farms so large that same careful over- 
sight and attention could not be bestowed on every 
part. But then the owners of the land will not give 
their attention to the matter. It is contrary to the 
whole tenor of their habits, taste and education. They 
have slaves, and can hire an overseer. Why should 
they plague themselves with the details of a business 
which they do not like, and do not understand? 

From the overseer and the slaves, as they have no 
interest in improvement, of course nothing is to be ex- 
pected. In fact it is the obvious interest of the over- 
seer to scourge as much out of the plantation as pos- 
sible, without the slightest regard to future conse- 
quences, especially if he is paid, as overseers often are, 
by a portion of the crop. 

But there are obstacles, to be encountered still more 
serious than these. Improvements cannot be made 
except by the expenditure of a certain portion of capi- 



IN AMERICA. 129 

tal upon the land. Either additional slaves must be 
purchased, or else a certain portion of the labor now 
employed in producing a small crop, must be diverted 
from immediate production, and employed in opera- 
tions undertaken with a view to distant returns. But 
this is an expenditure which the greater number of 
planters cannot afford. As it is, with, all their slaves 
employed in scourging out of the land the greatest 
immediate produce, their expenses exceed their in- 
comes, and they are running into debt every year. 
They are in no condition to risk the loss or curtail- 
ment of a single crop by changing the estabhshed 
method of cultivation, and attempting the introduc- 
tion of improvements. 

More yet, it is positively bad economy for a Virginia 
planter to undertake the improvement of his estate. 
Labor is the only means of resuscitating the exhausted 
lands of Virginia. Slave labor is the only kind of la- 
bor which in the present condition of things can be 
employed for that purpose. But in the slave iPiarket, 
the Virginia planter, even though he has money at 
command — which is a case sufficiently unusual, — can- 
not afford to compete with the slave traders from the 
South west. The profits which he can possibly derive 
from slave labor will not warrant him in paying so 
high a price. Of course he does not purchase; the 
slaves are driven off to be employed upon cotton plant- 
ations, while the lands of Virginia are left unimprov- 
ed, and still declining in value. Even as regards the 
labor of slaves already in the planter's possession, it is 
a much more profitable operation to emigrate with 
these slaves to Mississippi or Louisiana, and there to 
employ their labor in raising cotton, and killhig land, 
than to attempt the improvement of the worn out 
lands at home. 

That high price of slaves in the southwestern mar- 
ket, which the Virginians regard as a fortunate addi- 
tion to their diminishing resources, is likely to prove 
in its ultimate results, the greatest curse with which 
the state could be visited. If it were not for the do- 



130 DESPOTISM 

mestic slave trade, slaves would scarcely have an ex- 
changeable value in Virginia; the great cheapness of 
labor would facilitate agricultural improvements, and 
the total impossibility of going on any longer in the 
old way, would lead to important changes in the ex- 
isting system. As it is, the laboring population of the 
country, that population upon which all its wealth 
and consequence depends, is daily drained away. The 
state is bleeding at every pore, and a fatal lethargy 
must be tbe consequence. The richest soil, the most 
exuberant fertility without labor is improductive and 
worthless. What will be the condition of a state 
which has sold to the slave traders, the only laborious 
part of her population, whose most enterprising citi- 
zens have deserted their homes, and whose exhaust- 
ed lands hold out no temptation to emigrants from 
abroad 7 

In addition to the obstacles already pointed out in 
the way of agricultural improvement at the South, 
there is one yet to be mentioned, of a still more per- 
manent and decisive nature. It is a well established 
doctrine, that a rotation of crops, a variety and a very 
considerable variety in the articles cultivated, is es- 
sential to a highly improved state of agriculture. But 
such a rotation and variety is impossible in a country 
which is exclusively agricultural, and which must 
necessarily confine itself to some crops that will pay 
the expense of distant transportation. The number 
of these crops is exceedingly few, and they are all of a 
very exhausting character. The greater number of 
vegetable productions are only of use to be consumed 
on the spot ; and such a consumption cannot take 
place to any considerable extent, except there be in 
the neighborhood a manufacturing population to take 
off the extra supply. Agricultural improvements have 
ever kept pace with the extension of manufacturing 
industry. The reasons have been already given why 
the creation of a manufacturing population under 
existing circumstances, is impossible at the south, and 
that subject will be further considered in the follow- 
ing section. 



IN AMERICA. 131 

The condition of agriculture in Eastern Virginia, 
is in a greater or less degree, its condition in Mary- 
land, in North Carolina, in South Carolina, and in the 
older parts of Georgia. In the two latter states the 
cultivation of cotton has been attended by conse- 
quences exactly similar to those produced in Virginia, 
by the culture of tobacco. After pouring in upon 
those states a momentary flood of wealth, which glit- 
tered and disappeared, it has left the soil in a state of 
exhaustion and barrenness, for which no present reme- 
dy appears. 

The south-western states, Alabama, Mississippi and 
Louisiana are now the El Dorado of the slave-holders. 
In those states, cotton at present prices is a very pro- 
fitable crop. The demand for slaves is brisk. Good 
field hands sell for eight hundred, or a thousand dol- 
lars. The slaves of Maryland, Virginia and North 
Carolina are purchased up in droves for this market, 
and numbers equally large are moved off" to the south- 
west by emigrating planters. But these slaves, if they 
are lucratively employed in cultivating cotton, are 
employed at the same time, in killing land. Slavery 
will presently visit the south-west with the same blight 
of exhaustion and barrenness, which has already 
alighted upon Virginia and the Carolinas. In propor- 
tion to the rapidity with which the apparent immedi- 
ate prosperity of the south-western states is now ad- 
vancing, will be hastened the era of their decay. 

In the free states of the Union, the wealth of the 
west promotes the wealth of the east. The more 
prosperous are the new states, the more prosperous 
are the old. At the south it is not so. The new 
states are aggrandized at the expense of the old 
ones. But this aggrandizement has nothing in it, 
solid or permanent. For a short time a great annual 
income is obtained ; but it is obtained only by the an- 
nual consumption of a portion of that natural fertility, 
in which consists the only real capital of those com- 
munities, and this capital being presently exhausted, 
their short lived prosperity vanislies like a shadow. 



132 DESPOTISM 



SECTION IV. 

Manufactures and Commerce in the Slave-holding 
States. 

No merely agricultural nation ever yet attained a 
high degree of prosperity, or civilization. To attain 
that result it is necessary that manufacturing and 
commercial industry should combine with agriculture. 
All these three branches of industry are so sympathet- 
ically connected, that neither of them alone can be 
carried to any great degree of perfection. 

There have already been suggested several reasons 
why manufactures cannot prosper in the slave-holding 
states. It is necessary here to recapitulate them and 
to bring them together in a single point of view. 

1. Skill in the greater part of the mechanic and 
manufacturing arts, is not consistent with the state of 
total ignorance and barbarism in which it is judged 
the best policy that the unprivileged class should be 
kept. Skilled laborers are and must be, more intel- 
ligent and better informed, than those of an ordinary 
kind, 

2. Such skill is still less consistent with that social 
condition which deprives those subjected to it, of all 
motive to acquire that degree of expertness, on which 
the success of most mechanical operations so essen- 
tially depends. 

3. With respect to the laboring part of the free pop- 
ulation, the acquisition of manufacturing skill is little 
to be expected from the state of ignorance, indolence 
and depression which are to them, the natural results 
of the existence of slavery in the community of which 
they form a part. 

These three reasons go to cut off the supply of that 
kind of labor essential to the prosecution of manufac- 
turing operations. But besides labor, there is needed 
knowledge, tact, skill and judgment in the oversight 
and direction of labor, and capital to set it m operation. 



IN AMERICA. 133 

2. With regard to the oversight and direction of 
manufacturing operations, persons are very rarely to 
be found among the native population of the soutiiern 
states, possessed of the necessary quahfications. The 
whole course of their education and habits is averse to 
that system of order, economy, and minute and exact 
attention, which such a business requires. 

2. As regards capital, it has been shown in a pre- 
vious section, under what disadvantages all industri- 
ous operations labor at the south, from the compara- 
tively large amount of it, necessary to set them in ope- 
ration. In any manufacturing business for example, it 
is necessary to have capital enough over and above all 
that is required for the fixtures and stock, to jmr chase 
the laborers who are to carry it on. 

From the combined operation of these several causes 
it results, both in theory and in fact, that manufac- 
turing processes, on any large scale, are almost un- 
known at the south, and that even the commonest me- 
chanical arts are at a very low ebb. 

It is obvious at once, when the condition of the 
various classes of the population at the south is con- 
sidered, and when regard is had to the state of manu- 
factures, that trade must be at a low ebb. The un- 
privileged class have nothing to sell except what they 
steal, and of course they have but little to buy. The 
laboring freemen, produce but little, and of conrse are 
able to purchase but little. The class of wealthy 
slave-holders is very limited in number, and a large 
part of their income is often spent at a distance from 
home. The principal mercantile operations consist 
in the purchase and shipment of the great agricultural 
staples, a business which is carried on for the most 
part by means of English or northern capital, and at 
the same time by English or northern agents, and 
English or northern shippmg. 

Neither manufactures nor commerce can be regard- 
ed as adding any thing considerable to the wealth of 
the slave-holding states. 
12 



134 DESPOTISM 



SECTION V. 

InstabilUy and uncertainty of values in the Slave- 
Holding States. 

The necessity which the southern planters are un- 
der of confining themselves to the production of a few 
great staple crops, has been already stated and ex- 
plained. Slave labor in the United States, was first 
applied to the cultivation of tobacco. But the foreign 
demand for that article has been stationary ever since 
the revolutionary war, while the domestic demand 
increases only in proportion to the increase of the pop- 
ulation. Since the facilities of transportation between 
the western states and the Atlantic seaboard have been 
so much increased by the construction of canals and 
railroads, the farmers of Ohio have gone extensively 
into the cultivation of tobacco. They produce it by 
free labor, and the quantity of slave labor which can 
be profitably employed in this culture is more likely 
to increase than to diminish. 

The second application of slave labor in the United 
States, was to the cultivation of rice. That cultiva- 
tion however is and always has been, confined to a 
narrow tract of country along the sea coast of South 
Carolina and Georgia ; and as the demand for the 
article is nearly stationary, any considerable increase 
of the production would so diminish the price as to 
make it an unprofitable business. 

Sugar is produced only in the southern districts 
of Louisiana. This culture has been fostered by a 
protective duty, but the climate is too cold and un- 
steady for its successful prosecution. A few favora- 
ble seasons created a very false idea of the profits of 
this cultivation. A series of cold seasons has correct- 
ed these hasty impressions. The value of sugar 
plantations has declined, and there is but little inclin- 
ation or inducement to open new ones. 

The cultivation of cotton^ an article of which the 



IN AMERICA. 135 

consumption has so remarkably increased within the 
last forty years, has alone prevented the entire depre- 
ciation of southern property. There has been thus 
furnished a crop, to the production of which the labor 
of slaves could be profitably applied, and which has 
prevented such a competition in the other limited ap- 
plications of slave labor above enumerated, as would 
have rendered them utterly ruinous. 

The cotton cultivated in the United States is of two 
distinct kinds, known in commerce, as Sea island, and 
upland or short staple. The Sea island cotton, has a 
long silky fibre which adheres so slightly to the seed, 
as to be easily removed by means of two wooden roll- 
ers turning upon each other, which sufier the cotton 
wool to pass between them, but which exclude and 
separate the seed. This kind of cotton is employed 
only in the finest manufactures, and its consumption is 
very limited. It bears a much higher value than the 
other description but it is less productive, and requires 
great care and labor in its preparation for market. 
The sea air seems essential to it, and its cultivation 
is limited to an alluvial tract along the sea coast of 
South Carolina and Georgia. The cultivation of this 
kind of cotton was introduced about the conclusion of 
the revolutionary war ; but it has always been of so 
limited an extent as to hold out no relief to the great 
body of the slave-holders. 

The upland or short staple cotton, has a short fibre 
adhering with such tenacity to the seed, as to require 
the saw gin, an invention of the ingenious Whitney, 
for its separation. This kind of cotton succeeds as 
well in the interior as near the sea, and it is this kind, 
the consumption of which has so rapidly increased. 
It firF^ began to be cultivated as a crop about the be- 
ginning of the present century. For the first twenty 
years its production was principally confined to Geor- 
gia and the Carolinas. Since that time it has spread 
into the new states of the south-west, which now pro- 
duce more than two thirds of the entire crop, which 
in the period since the peace with Great Britain in 



136 DESPOTISM 

1815, has risen from two hundred thousand bales, to 
eighteen hundred thousand, per annum. 

The cuUivation of cotton is the only employment of 
slave labor which admits of profitable extension. The 
price of cotton regulates the price of slaves, and in- 
cidentally, the value of all kinds of property at the 
south. When all values are thus made dependent 
upon a single pnisuit, they are necessarily subject to 
great fluctuations. When there is a great variety of 
employments, there is established in consequence, a sort 
of average permanency of profits. Agriculture may 
be flonrishing, though manufactures and commerce are 
suffering a temporary depression ; and some branches 
of agriculture may be profitable, though others fail. 
At tiie south, every thing is staked upon the cast of 
a single die ; and as is apt to happen in all such cases, 
the planters are either in a state of high prosperity 
which leads to great speculations and the creation of 
great debts, or else in a state of depression, ruinous 
both to northern lenders, and to southern borrowers. 

The commercial fluctuations of the United States 
generally take their origin at the south. A high price 
of cotton creates at the south a feeling of wealth and 
a strong disposition to contract debts, while it pro- 
duces at the north, a strong disposition to give credit. 
Even though tlie price of cotton continues high, the 
expectation of the planters runs so far beyond the 
reality, that they presently become unable to fulfil 
their engagements; and if a decline in the price of 
cotton should follow, their inability becomes total, and 
the severe losses experienced in consequence by the 
merchants and manufacturers of the north, throw 
their business also into a temporary confusion. 

There is much reason to expect that these violent 
fluctuations in the value of southern property will 
presently terminate in a general and permanent de- 
preciation. Whether lands and slaves, ten 3'-ears 
hence, shall have any considerable value in any of 
the southern states, seems to depend very much upon 
the fact, whether or not the consumption of cotton 



IN AMERICA. 137 

shall keep pace with its production. If production 
should overrun consumption, the market will he glut- 
ted, the price will fall, the business will become un- 
profitable, and unless some new, extensive and profita- 
ble application of slave labor should unexpectedly be 
discovered, — an event which is highly improbable — 
land and labor throughout the south, must undergo a 
great decline in value. 

There arc weighty reasons for anticipating this result 
within a moderate period. Once already within the 
last twenty years the production of cotton has so over- 
run consumption as to reduce the profits of the busi- 
ness to the lowest ebb. The price has since rallied, 
but this rise of profits has produced a new rush into 
the business, and a vast emigration from the more 
northern of the slave-holding states, which must re- 
sult in a great increase of the production. On the 
other hand the consumption of cotton goods has al- 
ready reached a point, which makes its extension con- 
tinually more difficult. There is no reason to suppose 
that it can go on increasing for twenty years to come, 
as it has for twenty years past. That increase has 
been principally caused by cotton fabrics superceding 
for certain purposes, the use of linen and woollen cloths. 
That is a process which has a certain limit and which 
cannot be repeated. The consumption of cotton goods 
will doubtless continue to increase ; but this increase 
of consumption will be more upon a par than hereto- 
fore, with the increased consumption of other manu- 
factures. 

Whatever the increased demand for cotton may be 
the slave-holding states of the Union, are liable to en- 
counter a severe competition in supplying it. All that 
portion of the American continent south of the United 
States is well fitted for the production of this article. 
Cotton of a very superior quahty is produced to a 
large amount, in Brazil, and the new republic of Texas 
will presently be entering the market as a rival. 

Great exertions are now making in India, by British 
cultivators, to improve the quality of Indian cotton, 
12=^ 



138 DESPOTISM 

and not without success. The quantity of this article 
worked up by the British manufacturers is steadily 
increasing ; and when we recollect how completely 
the British indigo planters in India, succeeded in de- 
stroying the cultivation of indigo in the United States, 
which was once a very considerable business, by pro- 
ducing a superior article at a less price, the competition 
of the Indian cotton planters, however some ignorant 
persons may ridicule it, is by no means to be despised. 

Additional competition is to be expected from Africa. 
The Egyptian cottons are already well known as of 
very superior quality; and it seems highly probable 
that the French will presently introduce the same sort 
of cultivation into their Algerine possessions. 

On the whole it must be confessed that the single 
prop of the cultivation of cotton, forms a most slender, 
fragile and uncertain support, on which to rest the 
prosperity of an extensive and increasing population. 



SECTION VI. 

Comparative Progress and Prosperity of the Free 
and of the Slave-holding States. 

It is a fact too obvious to be denied even by the 
most prejudiced observers, that the slave-holding states 
of the Union are far inferior to the free states, in every 
thing that constitutes civilization, — in v/ealth, in ed- 
ucation, in the useful and ornamental arts, in public 
institutions, in public spirit, in literature, in science, 
in density of population, in facility of intercourse, in 
the splendor of cities, the neatness of towns, the com- 
forts and conveniency of individual dwellings. 

Of the thirteen states which originally composed the 
Union, slavery still prevails in six. It is abolished in 
the other seven, where indeed it never existed to any 



IN AMERICA. 139 

considerable extent. These seven states include an 
area of about one hundred and fifty thousand square 
miles ; the extent of the six slave states is upwards 
of two hundred thousand square miles. By the first 
census in 1790, the six free states contained a popula- 
tion of 1,908,000 souls; the population of the slave 
states amounted to 1,848,000. Forty years after, by 
the census of 1830, the population of the seven free 
states amounted to 5,256,000, while the population of 
the six slave states was only 3,571,000. The census 
of 1840 will show a still greater contrast; — for while 
the population of the seven free states has been in- 
creasing during the last eight or nine years, in a greater 
ratio than ever before, in the six slave states the drain 
of emigration has been so great as to have prevented 
any considerable increase. 

Density of population, and the existence of towns and 
cities, are essential to any great degree of social pro- 
gress. Brought thus into contact, mind acts upon mind 
what is discovered by one soon becomes known to all 
emulation leads to new discoveries and enterprises 
competition constantly exerts its beneficial influence 
the division of labor, that essential means of improve- 
ment, is not practicable among a scattered population ; 
cities are the central points from which knowledge, en- 
terprise, and civilization stream out upon the surround- 
ing country. 

In the six free States above referred to, we find 
three large cities, New York, Philadelphia, and Bos- 
ton, the first of which is generally regarded as the 
commercial metropolis of the Union. There are not 
less than twenty other considerable towns which are 
growing with rapidity, and several of which promise 
to rise to the first importance. Villages containing five 
or six thousand inhabitants, are quite numerous ; new 
ones are springing up every day, and others are pass- 
ing from the class of villages into that of towns. 

How different a picture is presented by the six slave 
States ! They contain but one city deserving the 
name, and that one, be it observed, is situated upon 



140 DESPOTISM 

the verge of the free States, and owes the principal 
part of its importance to that very circumstance. In 
weahh, trade and pnblic institutions, in Hterature, 
science and general refinement, Baltimore is far in- 
ferior to either of the great cities of the north. Charles- 
ton is a little more than a place of deposite for the pro- 
duce of the surrounding country, and a retreat for the 
neighboring planters from the unhealthiness of their 
plantations. It has been about stationary for this last 
twenty years, and the same is true of Alexandria, Nor- 
folk, Savannah, and other ancient towns. Jamestown, 
the original capital of Virginia, has ceased to exist, the 
ruins of an old church steeple are its only memorial. 
Williamsburg the second capital of Virginia, has long 
been in decay. Such existence as it has, it owes to the 
ancient college established there. Richmond, the pre- 
sent capital presents a more thriving appearance, — 
but to judge by the depopulation and impoverishment 
of the surrounding country, it must soon share a simi- 
lar fate. 

What are called towns in these States, would for 
the most part, be esteemed at the north, as little better 
than villages. In addition to the small number scat- 
tered along the sea-coast, there are a few of more re- 
cent growth, situated on the great rivers, generally at 
the head of steam-boat navigation. They are points 
at Avhich the produce of the country is collected for 
shipment, and whence imported goods are distributed 
through the adjoining country ; but so few and far be- 
tween, as scarcely at all to vary the dull monotony of 
a poorly peopled country which presents at the same 
time, all the rudeness of a new settlement, and all the 
marks of old age and decay. 

If the slave holding states formed a separate and in- 
sulated nation, cut off from communication and inter- 
course with the free states of the north, there is good 
reason to suppose that they would fall rapidly behind 
hand, in the career of civilization. As it is, they are 
sustained and dragged along by the energy of their 
northern sisters. Improvements are first started and 



IN AMERICA. 141 

put into execution at the north, then sloAvly and faint- 
ly imitated at the south. The best educated and most 
accomplished men of the southern states have passed 
their youth at northern schools and colleges ; such 
seminaries for education as the southern states possess, 
are supplied almost entirely with northern or foreign 
teachers. The whole trade of the south, so far as re- 
lates to transactions on the large scale, is in the hands 
of northern merchants who carry on this important 
branch of business for which the native citizens of 
those states, seem to lack the requisite knowledge, sa- 
gacity, perseverance and application. The learned 
professions, physic, divinity, and even the law, are 
more or less, recruited from the same source. The 
newspapers have northern editors; even the composi- 
tors who set the types are imported. The same is the 
case with all mechanics who have any considerable 
skill in the art they profess. Southern rail roads are 
built with northern capital and by northern engineers 
and contractors. It is hardly possible to erect a large 
hotel, or block of ware-houses without the aid of north- 
ern artificers. The southern states are supplied with 
books and periodicals from northern presses ; and it 
seems to be only by a close and intimate union with 
the north, that civilization at the south is enabled to 
make any progress, or even to preserve itself from de- 
cline. It is worthy of special remark however, that 
those northern men who emigrate to the south imbibe 
by degrees, the feelings and the habits, the indolence, 
and the incapacity of the population lay which they 
are sin-rounded. They are unable to transmit to their 
children any of those qualities which they carried with 
them from home. These children, bred up after the 
southern fashion, are thoroughly southern. It is con- 
stantly necessary that new blood should be transferred 
from the warm and vigorous circulation of the north, 
to revive and quicken the veins, palsied, and made 
stagnant by the poison of slavery. 



CHAPTER FOURTH. 

PERSONAL RESULTS OF THE SLAVE-HOLDING SYSTEM. 



SECTION I. 

Personal Effects of Slavery upon the members of the 
privileged class. 

By personal results of the sla\'e-holding system 
those resuhs are intended, which exhibit themselves 
in the personal character of the members of a slave- 
holding community. 

Slavery has already been explained to be in its na- 
ture, a protracted state of war. All its results are 
sufficiently conformable to such an origin. 

Soldiers possess a free and self-confident air, and 
when among friends and not irritated or opposed, they 
exhibit a frank, good humor, an easy, companionable, 
disposition, which renders their society agreeable, and 
causes their company to be ge'nerally courted. Their 
military duties often leave them an abundance of lei- 
sure ; for long intervals, they often have nothing to do 
but to seek amusement, and they give a warm and 
hearty welcome to all who are disposed to join and aid 
them in that pursuit. 

These same traits of manners are sufficiently con- 
spicuous among the privileged class of our southern 
aristocracies. Though a large portion of that class is 
destitute of education, and of any real refinement, yet 
almost every member of it has more or less, a certain 
patrician bearing, a consciousness of his own superi- 
ority which gives him an air of manliness and dignity, 



DESPOTISM IN AMERICA. 143 

but which it must be confessed, degenerates too often 
into rudeness and braggadocio. The wealthier and 
better educated, passing ahiiost the whole of their 
Uves in a round of social pleasures, have attained to a 
considerable perfection in the art of pleasing ; and 
those who visit the southern states of the Union for the 
first time, are generally captivated by the politeness, 
the hospitality, the attentions, the good humor of the 
people. 

Manners however are far from being any certain in- 
dex of character, and they are often carried to a high 
pitch of refinement, in cases where all the virtues 
which they seem to indicate, are lamentably deficient. 

The soldier nursed in blood and robbery, however 
mildly and gently he conducts himself, is at best, only 
a tame tiger, not rashly to be trusted. His passions 
are violent and unmanageable, accustomed to indul- 
gence, and impatient of control. It is the same with 
the slave-master. Habituated to play the tyrant at 
home, unshackled regent and despotic lord upon his 
own plantation, where his wish, his slightest whim is 
law, the love of domineering, possesses all his heart. The 
intercourse of society has taught him the policy and 
the advantages of mutual concession in little things, 
and the trifling points of ordinary politeness he yields 
with the ready willingness of a well bred man. Be- 
yond this he is not to be trusted. Alarm his preju- 
dices, his self-love, his jealousy, his avarice, his ambi- 
tion ; cross his path in any shape whatever ; assume 
the character of a rival or a censor ; presume to doubt 
his perfect wisdom and immaculate virtue; and from a 
laughing, good natured companion, he is changed at 
once, into a fierce, furious, raving and raging enemy. 
He boils and almost bursts with passion ; he answers 
argument with invective ; instead of reasons, he re- 
plies to you with insults. Not content to restrain his 
hate within the usual limits of civilized life, he thirsts 
for your blood. He murders you in a duel ; assaults 
you in the streets with pistols and Bowie knife; or de- 
liberately shoots you from the door of his house, with 



144 DESPOTISM 

a double-barrelled giin. The fear of the law does not 
restrain him. In the southern states, a gentleman is 
never hung. The most cold-blooded and dehberate 
murderers, in the upper classes of society, escape with 
a fine or a short imprisonment. The gallows is re- 
served for abolitionists, negro-stealers, and pooi- white 
folks. 

I. The condition of society in the southern states, 
even among the most refined and best educated por- 
tion of the people, exhibits frightful evidences of fe- 
rocity OF TEMPER, such as a state of everlasting war 
might be expected to produce. Thucidides remarks, 
that from the time the Athenians laid aside the cus- 
tom of going armed, civility and refinement began to 
make a steady progress among them. This is a point 
to which the people of the southern states have not 
yet attained. They generally carry arms ; but the 
pistols, knives and dirks, their favorite weapons, are 
of a kind more fit for foot-pads and assassins, than for 
well-intentioned citizens. In several of the states it 
has been attempted to suppress by penal enactments, 
this barbarous practice of carrying deadly weapons. 
These laws are never enforced, and it is scarcely pos- 
sible they should be. To carry arms in tlie state of 
things existing at the south, seems absolutely neces- 
sary. If his slaves resist, how else shall the master 
maintain his authority? Those who have been sub- 
dued by force, must be kept under by force ; and if 
the armed conquerors, in moments of anger, some- 
times turn their weapons against each other, that 
is what is liable to happen among all collections of 
armed men. What wonder if that inhuman and 
blood-thirsty spirit, whicli the tyrannical rule they ex- 
ercise, keeps more or less alive, in the bosom of all 
slave masters, often bursts out in full fury in their 
quarrels with each other 7 The familiarity with which, 
under the influence of excited passion, they talk of 
murder is only to be equalled, by the savage ferocity 
with which, under the same influence, they often com- 
mit it. The atrocity of southern duels has long been 



IN AMERICA. 145 

notorious, — but what duel can be compared with those 
"rencontres" of which we so often read accounts in 
the southern papers, — accounts which among the peo- 
ple of those states seem to carry with them all the in- 
terest of a bull-baiting or a cock-fight, — in which two 
men or more, armed to the teeth, meet in the streets, 
at a court-house or a tavern, shoot at each other with 
pistols, then draw their knives, close, and roll upon 
the ground, covered with dust aud blood, struggling 
and stabbing till death, wounds, or the submission of 
one of the parties, put an end to the contest? These 
scenes, which if they take place at the north at all, ap- 
pear but once an age, and then only among the lowest 
and most depraved of theemigrantpopulation,areof fre- 
quent and almost daily occurrence at the south, among 
those who consider themselves the most respectable 
people. Andrew Jackson, late president of the United 
States, and regarded as a most illustrious citizen, has 
been engaged in several such affrays. 

II. Improv^idence is a vice of the most dangerous 
character. The ancients were so impressed with the 
multitudinous evils and miseries to which it gives 
occasion, that they raised prudence to the dignity of 
one of the four cardinal virtues. Improvidence is 
however a failing, which is apt to prevail to a great 
extent in a slave-holding community. The care- 
less, headlong rapidity with which a planter spends 
his money, is proverbial. This childish profusion 
has even been raised among them to the rank of a vir- 
tue ; it is described as the mark of a noble minded 
man; while economy is decried and stigmatized as 
mean and little. This sort of profusion may dazzle 
and delight the weak-minded and the thoughtless. It 
is very clear however that it seldom implies any of 
that benevolence or magnanimity which it has been 
supposed to indicate. 

It generally originates in the desire to gratify some 
whim of the moment, or, what is oftener the case, in the 
desire to be admired as a person of wealth and liber- 
ality. It is one way of gratifying the universal de- 
13 



1 46 DESPOTISM 

sire of social superiority. A planter will spend some 
hundreds upon an entertainment, and the next morn- 
ing will refuse an extra pair of shoes to a lame old 
negro, who has labored for him all his life. Ask one 
of these lavish spendthrifts to do an act, not of be- 
nevolence merely, but of justice, by setting a slave at 
liberty, and he will laugh in your face. We hear of 
many acts of profusion at the south, few acts of gen- 
erosity. It is not there, that institutions are endowed 
for purposes of public charity. No associations exist 
there, or next to none, for charitable purposes. When 
a subscription is to be raised for some object of public 
benevolence, the contribution of our southern planters 
is extremely scanty. They lavish thousands on their 
own pleasures, and the companions of those plea- 
sures ; they bestow little or nothing upon the suffer- 
ings of strangers. Indeed it would be absurd to ex- 
pect it. They who are not moved by the scene of 
poverty, degradation and distress, which their own 
plantations every day present, how can they be affect- 
ed by the comparatively little miseries of which they 
only hear, or which they but casually see? 

The quantity of money that can be got is a limited 
sum ; the quantity that can be spent is indefinite. 
Take the southern states throughout, and it is probable 
that seven slave-masters out of ten, live beyond their 
income. The labor, the fruits of which would have suf- 
ficed to make fifty families comfortable and happy, be- 
ing engrossed, with the exception of the barest subsist- 
ence to the laborers, by a single family, does not suffice 
to make that single family happy or even comforta- 
ble. Improvidence subjects to all the miseries of ac- 
tual poverty. Men in the possession of large estates 
are tormented all their lives by sheriffs and duns, and 
at their death, leave large families brought up in all 
the luxury of wealth, and the helplessness of habitual 
indolence, penniless and unprovided for, a prey to the 
bitterest miseries of want. 

III. Idleness, says the copy book, is the mother 
of all the vices. If any one doubt the truth of this 



IN AMERICA. 147 

ancient and homely maxim, to be convinced of it, 
he need only spend a year or two in the south. He 
will find a great many idle people there. Almost 
all the owners of slaves have hardly any occupa- 
tion except to amuse themselves. Born and bred 
to this occupation they become incapable of any other. 
One would suppose that having so much leisure time, 
they might turn their attention to the study of agri- 
culture, an art upon which so wholly depends not their 
private income only, but the public wealth of the com- 
munities to which they belong. But no, — they have 
no taste for such pursuits, and they leave the man- 
agement of their plantations, entirely to their over- 
seers. This neglect however ought not to be wholly 
ascribed to their disinclination for regular and useful 
pursuits. If they go much upon tbeir plantations, so 
many cruel sights come under their view, tliey are so 
harrassed by petitions and complaints, they find them- 
selves so oppressed by the cares of authority, that they 
hasten to relieve themselves from the burden, and to 
shift it to the shoulders of some case-hardened mana- 
ger. All despotisms are alike. What happens to an 
oriental sultan, happens to an occidental slave-master. 
The weight of empire presses too heavily upon their 
effeminate and feeble necks. Both alike spend in idle 
luxury ail that can be spunged from the forced labor 
of their subjects, but both alike transfer the task of 
spunging to a vizier, or an overseer. 

Thus freed from all the cares of business, it might 
be imagined that the wealthy slave-masters of the 
south, would bestow their time and thoughts upon the 
pursuit of knowledge, the cultivation of literature, and 
the agreeable arts. We might suppose that they would 
push scientific investigations to their utmost limits, 
astonish the world witli new discoveries in morals and 
in physics, or delight it with all the graces of poetry, 
the beauties and sublimities of painting, sculpture, 
music and architecture. 

In these expectations we are totally disappointed. 
Books are a rare commodity at the south; literature 



143 DESPOTISM 

is uncommon and science still more so. Libraries, 
whether public or private, are seldom to be met with. 
A few classics thumbed over at school, a few novels 
old or new, a sprinkling of political pamphlets, and 
some favorite newspaper, form the whole circuit of 
letters and learning, ordinarily trodden by the most 
studious of the planters. The education of the fe- 
males, even among the wealthiest classes, is still more 
superficial. In this connection, it ought to be remem- 
bered, that a very considerable portion of the priv- 
ileged class, are totally destitute even of the rudiments 
of learning. To read is an accomplishment they have 
never acquired. Of course, it is not to be expected 
that persons so unfortunately circumstanced, can find 
employment for their leisure in literary pursuits. 

Thus situated, with no resources for the occupation 
of their time, the privileged class are constantly beset 
by a weariness of soul, perhaps the most distressing 
disorder to which men are subject. " Thank God I 
am not a negro !" said a planter one day, as he sat 
beneath the shade of his porch, and watched his slaves 
in a neighboring field, at work beneath a burning sun. 
Yet it rnay well be doubted whether the most miser- 
able of those slaves was half as miserable, as their 
unfortunate master, who lived in a lonely part of the 
country, and suffered from a forced idleness and soli- 
tude, the most poignant distresses. 

It is a common remark among the planters that the 
slaves are happier than the masters. Many will re- 
ject this idea with indignation, as a mere falsehood, 
invented to gloss over the abominations of tyranny. 
No doubt the observation is generally urged with that 
intent. But the truth of a fact does not depend upon 
the use intended to be made of it, by those who assert 
it. The more closely a man meditates upon the state 
of things at the south, the more inclined he will be 
to admit the truth of the above remark touching the 
comparative happiness of the masters and the slaves. 
Instead however of saying that the masters and the 
slaves are equally happy, the idea might be more 



IN AMERICA. 149 

clearly and distinctly expressed by saying, that both 
masters and slaves are eqnally miserable. Slavery 
is an invention for dividing the goods and ills of life 
into two separate parcels, so as to bestow all the ills 
upon the slaves, and all the good upon the masters. 
So far as regards the slaves, this attempt is successful 
enough. The miseries of life are concentrated upon 
their heads in a terrible mass. But as respects the 
masters the experiment fails entirely. The coveted 
good, like that manna which the too greedy Israel- 
ites sought wrongfully to appropriate, corrupts, putre- 
fies, changes its nature, and turns into evil. Occupa- 
tion too long continued is destructive to happiness, but 
idleness is not less so ; and it may well be doubted 
whether the compulsive labor of the slaves, is anymore 
copious a source of misery than the forced idleness of 
the masters. I say forced idleness, for in depriving 
themselves of the motives to labor and exertion, they 
force themselves to be idle. 

To obtain some relief from the weariness that con- 
stantly besets them, the planters seek to divert and 
occupy their thoughts by social intercourse. This is 
the origin of that hospitality for which the people of 
the south are so famous, and which is often brought 
forward as a virtue ample enough to cover the ac- 
knowledged multitude of their sins. Hospitality, it is 
true, bears a certain relation to benevolence; but it is 
to benevolence no more than is the flounce to the gar- 
ment. The attempt to conceal the nakedness of the 
land by such a rag, is as contemptible as it is futile. 
In truth, the visiters who arrive at a plantation confer 
a real benefit upon the lord of it. They give him oc- 
cupation. The efibrts necessary to entertain, are not 
less agreeable to him who makes them, than to those 
for whom they are made. If the visiter be a total 
stranger so much the better. There is the zest of nov- 
elty added to the excitement of occupation. If he 
come from a distant part of the country, better yet. 
He will probably be able to suggest a great many new 
and interesting ideas, likely to give an agreeable mo- 
13* 



150 CESFOtISM 

tion to the stagnant soul of his host. Hospitality has 
ever been a virtue abundantly practiced among all 
idle and indolent races. The indian tribes of America, 
are all celebrated for its exercise. The plundering 
Arabs of the desert, look upon it as a religious duty, — 
for conscience and inclmation are always apt to pull 
together. 

But the exercise of this virtue among the people of 
the south, becomes the occasion of several practices of 
the most dangerous and deleterious kind. It is not 
the cause of those practices, but only the occasion for 
them. In itself, it is essentially good, and displays 
the character of the slave-holder in the most amiable 
light it ever assumes. Hospitality is benevolence on 
a small scale, and how can benevolence on any other 
scale be expected, from men whose total existence is 
a contiiuied violation of its clearest and most urgent 
commands 1 

1, The spirit of improvidence, above described, as 
one of the evil results of the slave-holding system, 
when it becomes associated with the passion for hos- 
pitality, is reenforced by two very powerful motives, 
which give it new impetus ; first, the desire of at- 
tracting visiters, by the superior luxury and expen- 
siveness of the entertainment offered; and second and 
principally, the love of superiority, that spirit of emu- 
lation and rivalry, which leads each planter to outvie 
his neighbor in the profusion of his hospitality. It is 
astonishing what a number of southern planters have 
been ruined in their pecuniary affairs by the joint ope- 
ration of these means. 

2. The Hospitality of the south, not only stimulates 
improvidence, it is the nursing mother of the vice of 
DRUNKENNESS, whicli prevails throughout the whole 
country to a frightful extent. Dinner parties end too 
often in general intoxication. What is called the 
Temperance Reform, has made but trifling progress 
in the slave-holding states. The obstacles in its way 
are immense. To drink is absolutely necessary as a 
means of kiUing time. Among the lower orders of the 



IN AMERICA. 151 

privileged class, every social meeting ends in drunk- 
enness. Attend an election, and by the time the polls 
are closed, you will find a great collection of citizens 
at the place of voting, all or most of them, " gloriously 
drunk." Stay long enough and you will see a fight. 
In Kentucky such occasions are apt to wind up, with 
what is called a free fight, that is, a general and indis- 
criminate knock-down, in which every body present 
is at liberty to participate. This is the grand finale, or 
concluding chorus : but before this part of the per- 
formance is reached, there are duets, trios, quartets 
and quintets, in all possible variety. In Mississippi 
and Tennessee, laws have lately been enacted, pro- 
hibiting the sale of intoxicating liquors in small quan- 
tities. Some movements have also been made in 
Georgia and South Carolina, towards obtaining the 
passage of similar laws. Laws of this kind are easily 
enacted in those states, much more so than at the 
north, because in those states, the wholesale trade in 
liquors is almost entirely confined to a few northern 
merchants and traders, who have no political influ- 
ence, while the retail trade is in the hands of a set of 
poor white shopkeepers, rendered odious and infamous 
by their habit of secret traffic with the slaves, and 
belonging to that inferior class of the privileged order, 
which though it exceeds in numbers, is deprived for 
the most part, of any political authority. But how- 
ever easy it may be to enact such laws, it will be 
impossible to enforce them, so long as the very legis- 
lators by whose votes they are enacted, are themselves 
perpetually in the habit of excessive drinking. These 
laws will fall into the same total neglect with the 
statutes against wearing concealed weapons already 
referred to, and those against gaming, to which we 
shall presently refer. 

3. But such is the total stagnation of intellect and 
sentiment at the south, that even the stimulus of in- 
toxicating liquors is not enough to give life and zest 
to social intercourse. There is need of more potent 
means. Necessity is the mother of invention. That 
means is at hand. It is gaming. 



152 DESPOTISM 

This vice, more dangerous and dreadful, if possible, 
even than drunkenness itself, is equally prevalent at 
the south. Many attempts have been made to eradi- 
cate it. There are penal laws against it, in all the 
slave holding states. Of late, we have seen the sum- 
mary process of Lynch Law applied to the same pur- 
pose. In Vicksburgh, one of the principal towns in 
the state of Mississippi, the most respectable people of 
the place, assembled in the month of July, 1835, and 
after pulling down several buildings used as gambling 
houses, proceeded to seize the persons of Jive profes- 
sional gamblers and to hang them on the spot, with- 
out judge or jury. " These unfortunate men," says 
the Louisiana Advertiser, "claimed to the last the 
privilege of American citizens, — the trial by jury, — 
and professed themselves willing to submit to any 
thing their country would legally inflict upon them ; 
but we are sorry to say, their petition was in vain ! 
The black musicians were ordered to strike up, and 
the voices of the suppliants were drowned by the fife 
and drum. Mr. Riddell, the cashier of the Planter's 
Bank, ordered them to play Yankee Doodle, a tune 
which we believe has never been so prostituted before, 
and which we hope, and we trust will never be again. 
The unhappy sufferers frequently implored a drink of 
water, but were refused. * =5^ * # The wife of 
one of them, half distracted at the cruel treatment 
and murder of her husband, trembling for her own 
safety, in tears begged permission to inter her hus- 
band's body, — but in vain. She was afterwards 
compelled to fly, with her orphan child, in an open 
skifl', for her personal security. The same fate was 
threatened to any person who should dare to cut down 
the bodies before the expiration of twenty-four hours. 
At eleven o'clock the next day, they were cut down 
and thrown together into a hole, which had been dug 
near the gallows, without coffins or any other pre- 
parations, except a box into which one of them was 
put." 

Of the persons who assisted at this execution there 



IN AMERICA. 153 

was not probably one, who was not himself in the 
constant habit of gambhng. Yet is the horror of this 
vice so great in the southern states, and its ill effects, 
brought home to the public mind by constant expe- 
rience are so generally acknowledged, that the actors 
in this tragedy were never called to account before 
any judicial tribunal, and their conduct, throughout 
the entire south, was either openly approved, or very 
faintly condemned. The tone of reprobation in which 
the Loiiisiana Advertiser speaks, found but a slight 
and indistinct echo from the other southern prints. 

Yet notwithstanding all the horror, with which this 
vice of gambling is regarded, the indulgence in it> at 
least among the men. is next to uniA^ersal. The two 
present senators from Kentucky (1840) are men of 
whose talents any country might be proud. But a 
few years since they were both as much celebrated 
for a reckless spirit of gambling, as they were then 
and still are, for patriotism and ability. When such 
men lead, followers are always plenty. Every little 
village of the south has its race-course, its billiard 
room, its faro table, and its gambling house, and of 
the three latter, perhaps several. This grows out of 
the moral necessity of things. Men, in all ages, and 
in every country, who have had much leisure on their 
hands, which they know not how else to employ, have 
ever sought relief in some sort of gambling. It is 
so always with savages, sailors and soldiers, and so it 
is with the idle population of the south. The habit 
once acquired, it becomes almost impossible to resist 
its seductions. To reform a gambler is much the 
same difficult task as to reform a drunkard. The 
planter who has been secluded upon his estate for a 
week or a month, in irksome and wretched indolence, 
his heart all the tijjie devouring itself, orders his horse 
or his carriage in a lit of desperation, and sets out for 
the nearest village. The gaming table offers him the 
speediest and most certain means of excitement, the 
surest method of shaking off the listless misery v/hich 
oppresses him. To the gaming table he goes. It 



154 DESPOTISM 

Stands always ready, — for the necessity of the case has 
created a pecuHar class of men at the south, who are 
gamblers by profession. It was to this class that those 
men belonged who were hanged at Vicksburg. This 
is a profession which has sprung up naturally at the 
south, and as has been said necessarily, and which 
can boast of more talent and accomplishment among 
its members, than the three learned professions of law, 
physic and divinity united. 

The institution of slavery deprives a large portion of 
the people of their natural occupation. But as man is 
essentially an active animal, to supply this deficiency 
it is necessary to create artificial occupations. Gam- 
bling is the employment, which under similar circum- 
stances, has ever presented itself to men, as a means 
of killing time. In order that this employment may 
be indulged in, whenever the want of it is felt, it is 
necessary that a peculiar class should exist, as it were, 
the priesthood of the gaming table, always ready at 
all times, to gamble with all comers. These are the 
professional gamblers. They practice gaming not for 
amusement, but as a livelihood. If they left every 
thing to chance and strictly observed the laws of play, 
it v/ould be impossible for them to live by their busi- 
ness, because, in the long run, they would be certain to 
lose as much as they won, and so could have nothing 
left whereupon to live. Hence they are compelled 
to play false. They must cheat, or starve. They are 
not merely gamblers, but swindlers. This explains 
the odium attached to their occupation. Merely to 
gamble is no imputation upon any body's character 
in the southern states, or at most it is an imputation 
of which nobody is ashamed. To be a gambler by 
profession is infamous, because it is well understood, 
that every professional gambler is a cheat. 

But though the profession is infamous, still it is 
crowded. Its members throng the steam-boats, the 
hotels, the cities, and the villages of the south, and 
among them may be found, the most gentlemanly, 
agreeable, insinuating, talented, well informed men of 



IN AMERICA. 155 

the whole population, constantly on the watch, and 
always laboring to attract, to allure, to please, many 
of them attain a peculiar polish and elegance of man- 
ners. New recruits are always crowding in. The 
planter who has ruined himself by improvidence, dis- 
sipation or losses at the gaming table, the young dis- 
appointed heir, bred up in indolence and luxury by a 
father who dies insolvent, — these persons find scarcely 
any other way of gaining their daily bread, except to 
adopt gambling as a profession. There is no other 
business for which they are qualified, there is no other 
art, which they understand. It seems hard to hold 
these individuals strictly responsible for the evil they 
do. You cannot expect them to starve. They are 
the victims of a social system intolerably bad. 

The professional gamblers are above described such 
as they are, when at the head of their profession, and 
in the heyday of success. In general, they soon begin 
to go down hill. Proverbially improvident, they are 
abundantly supplied with money, or wholly without it. 
The latter presently comes to be their habitual condi- 
tion. Their fate closely resembles that of prostitutes in 
a great city. Drunkenness relieves their distresses for 
the moment, but by destroying their health and their 
intellect, soon precipitates them into lower depths of 
misery. They become at last a burden upon relatives 
and friends ; find in an early death a refuge from de- 
spair; or are precipitated into crimes v^^hich carry 
them to the penitentiary or the gallows. 

The vice of gambling is not confined to the supe- 
rior portion of the privileged order. It pervades the 
lower class also. There are blacklegs and gambling 
houses adapted to the taste and manners of all. 

To the business of gambling, the professional gam- 
blers from time to time, add several other occupations. 
They become passers of counterfeit money, horse- 
thieves, and negro-stealers. Nothing except the ex- 
treme poverty of the country, prevents them from 
organizing an extensive system of plunder. Horses 
and slaves are almost the only thing, capable of trans- 



156 DESPOTISM 

portation, which can be stolen. In general, to pick 
the pockets of the planters by the help of a faro table 
or a pack of cards, is not only a safe, but a surer 
operation than to attempt it in any other way. 

Party politics, state and national, aflbrd the only 
topic, to any extent of an intellectual character, in 
which any considerable number of the southern pop- 
ulation, take any deep interest, or which serves to any 
considerable extent, to dispel the fog of wearisome 
idleness, by which they are constantly threatened to 
be enveloped. Politics at the south, are rather specu- 
lative than practical. Every slave-holding commu- 
nity is essentially conservative, and opposed to all 
change. The southern politicians puzzle and lose 
themselves in vain attempts to reconcile the metaphy- 
sical system of liberty acknowledged by their own 
state constitutions, with the actual system of despo- 
tism amid which they live. Their ablest reasoners, 
can boast no more than to be subtle logicians, and in- 
genious sophists. Statesmanship is a thing they have 
no idea of Yet the study of politics, barren, empty 
and profitless as southern politics are, has saved 
many of the finest minds at the south from a total 
stagnation, and aflfords to great numbers a stimulant 
altogether more harmless than gambling and strong 
drink. Great numbers of tlie southern planters are as 
great adepts in political metaphysics, as the Scotch 
peasantry are or were, in calvinistic divinity. Grant 
their premises, — which for the most part are utterly 
false, — and they reason like a book. 

There have been enumerated above, five capital de- 
fects in the character and conduct of the privileged 
class at the south, viz : ferocity of temper, improvi- 
dence, idleness, drunkenness, and gambling. It is but 
justice to say, that the female portion of the privileg- 
ed class are in general entirely free from the two last 
mentioned faults, nor does ferocity of temper exhibit 
itself among them, to any thing the same extent 
as in the male sex. Idleness and improvidence are 
their greatest and most striking defects. 



IN AMERICA. 157 

Among the men however, the whole five are palpa- 
ble, obvious, undeniable. As to this matter there can- 
not be any dispute. It must be confessed, however 
unwillingly that these faults are characteristic of the 
southern people. It has been shown how they are all 
aggravated, and rendered incurable, by the existence 
of slavery. Any attempt to remove or palliate them, 
while that cause of aggravation remains, can have 
only a partial and limited success. It is impossible to 
make men virtuous or happy unless by giving them 
some steady employment that shall innocently engage 
their attention, and pleasantly occupy their time. The 
most essential step in the progress of civilization, is, 
to render useful industry, respectable. But this step 
can never be taken, so long as labor remains the badge 
of a servile condition. 



SECTION II. 

Personal effects of slavery vpo7i the members of the 
unprivileged class. 

Extremes meet. The truth of this proposition, in a 
physical point of view is evident from the fact that 
every motion upon the earth's surface describes an 
elliptical curve. Experience would seem to show that 
this proposition is almost as true in morals as in phy- 
sics. At all events it is a curious fact, that the exist- 
ence of slavery in a community, instead of producing 
such diversities as might be supposed, does in fact, in 
many very important particulars, operate almost ex- 
actly alike upon the masters and the slaves. Fero- 
city of temper, idleness, improvidence, drunkenness, 
gambling — these are vices for which the masters are 
distinguished, and these same vices are conspicuous 
traits in the character and conduct of slaves. 
14 



158 ' DESPOTISM 

1. Ferocity of Temper. The first access of suf- 
fering softens the heart, the long continuance of suffer- 
ing tends to harden it. Suffering when long continu- 
ed, begins to be looked upon as a thing of course. He 
who constantly fears to feel the whip upon his own 
shoulders, ceases to weep because it falls upon another. 
Those who are accustomed to see authority exercised 
almost solely in the infliction of pain, form present- 
ly a close association between the two things. They 
seem to be inseparable, and a liberal use of violent 
means comes to be looked upon as the only method of 
showing one's power. Now the love of power, or to 
speak more correctly, that love of superiority, which 
the exercise of power is a means of gratifying, is one 
of the native, and one of the strongest impulses of the 
human heart. The slave feels it like other men. 
He indulges it, when, where, and as, he can, upon his 
wife, his children and the horse he drives, or upon 
such of his companions as superior strength, or the 
appointment of his master has submitted to his con- 
trol. He exercises his authority in the same way in 
which authority has been exercised over him. In this 
as in many other respects, he closely copies the exam- 
ple of his master. 

Let it be recollected also that ferocity of temper is a 
peculiar trait of a savage or barbarous state of society. 
In civilized countries, it is principally to be seen 
among the most ignorant and least refined. Civiliza- 
tion is perhaps more remarkable for its effect in soft- 
ening the tempers of men than for any other single 
thing. Slaves are purposely kept in a state of barbar- 
ism and ignorance. That they should have little con- 
trol over their tempers, and should give way to vio- 
lent and sudden gusts of passion, is a matter of course. 

2. Imjn'ovidence. Among freemen, the pleasures 
of accumulation are perhaps not inferior to the pleas- 
ures of consumption. The pleasure that a house keep- 
er enjoys from knowing thai he has laid by a stock of 
provisions sufficient to support his family through the 
winter, is sufficient to counterbalance a great deal of 



IN AMERICA. 159 

saving and self-denial. But the pleasures of accumu- 
lation are pleasures which a slave cannot enjoy. His 
sole pleasure consists in consuming. It is therefore 
his object to consume all he possibly can. To gratify 
a present appetite is almost all he ever thinks of. He 
knows that his master will not suffer him to perish for 
want of absolute necessaries. Any thing he should 
lay by, he would be in constant danger of loshig, be- 
cause property is a thing which the laws do not allow 
him to possess. When he has consumed a thing he is 
sure of it, and only then — 

Be fair or foul, or rain or shine 

The joys I have possessed in spite of fate are mine, 

Nor heaven itself upon the past has power, 

But what has been, has been, and I have had my hour. 

The slaves never read either Horace or Dry den, 
but they feel and they reason in the same way. 

The spirit of improvidence has for its associate on 
the part of the slaves as well as on the part of the 
masters, a remarkable disposition for hospitality. But 
the hospitality of the slaves may justly be regarded 
as a virtue of a much higher order, than the hospi- 
tality of the masters, inasmuch as the slaves bestow 
out of their necessities, whereas the masters in gener- 
al, give from their abundance. Sunday for the most 
part is allowance day, and on those plantations where 
meat forms a part of the allowance, it often happens, 
where the vigilance of masters or overseers does not 
prevent it, that within six hours, the portion of meat 
given out for the whole week, is consumed in treating 
friends and acquaintances from some neighboring 
plantations, where meat is a luxury that forms no por- 
tion of the regular allowance. The slaves are as fond 
of nocturnal entertainments as the masters arc of din- 
ner parties, and the profuse liberality with which, 
from the scanty means within their power, they con- 
tribute to get them up, shows them in point of good 
fellowship, to be not less free hearted than their mas- 
ters. 



160 DESPOTISM 

3. Idleness. The natural stimulus of labor is, the 
hope of reward. The expectation of reward is capa- 
ble of exciting the most strenuous exertions, and when 
properly presented, never fails of effect. Where this 
motive does not exist, industry is unknown. The 
fear of punishment cannot produce it. The most it 
can do is, to produce an empty appearance of it, 
which is in fact little better than idleness in the dis- 
guise of labor. 

But it is not alone the absence of reward that makes 
a slave necessarily idle. In his mind labor is asso- 
ciated indissolubly with the lash. Pain, weariness, 
fear, the sense of inferiority, these are in his eyes, 
the natural companions of labor. What wonder if he 
regard it with disgust ? On the other hand, idleness, 
to his limited view, appears to be the distinguishing 
badge of freedom, and with freedom he associates every 
idea of pleasure and content. 

Idleness again, in point of fact, is in the case of a 
slave a real luxury, a true delight, much more so, 
than it ever can be in the case of a freeman, and that 
for three reasons. First, because rest is ever delightful 
to the weary, and those who labor by compulsion are 
always weary. Second, because being idle, as has 
been shown in a previous chapter, is a sort of means 
whereby the slave is enabled to regain, as it were, a 
certain portion of his liberty. Third, because idle- 
ness is a means of lessening the value of that stolen 
labor upon which the master has seized, and so of in- 
dulging that indignation and hatred which the slave 
naturally feels. Do we not commonly destroy our 
property, whether public or private, whenever that is 
the only way to save it from falling into the hands of 
an enemy ? 

To make men industrious, who have all these mo- 
tives for idleness, is out of the question. The experi- 
ence of the world has proved ten thousand times over, 
and every individual who will but consider his own 
motives of action, must be abundantly, satisfied, that 
the only stimulus that can be relied upon as able to 



IN AMERICA. 161 

produce a life of regular industry is, — the hope of re- 
ward, — a fair prospect of being permitted to enjoy un- 
disturbed, the fruits of our labor. 

4. Dninkejiness. The excitement which drunk- 
enness produces is of so very pleasurable a kind, that 
those who have once experienced it, have need of very 
strong motives to enable them to resist the temptation 
it holds out. Especially is this the case with those who 
lack that steady, regular yet innocent stimulus sup- 
plied by a daily occupation in which they take pleasure. 
When occupation is wanting, or when instead of be- 
ing pleasurable the occupation to which a man is 
obliged to submit, is irksome and disagreeable, there 
results a miserable weariness of soul, against which 
drunkenness offers an opiate so tempting that even 
the most intelligent and best educated are not always 
able to resist it. That the slaves as a body should 
greedily snatch at it, is not surprising. 

5. Gambling. That same wearisome state of 
mind, which among both bond and free is the greatest 
temptation to drink, proves also tlie strongest induce- 
ment to gamble. The human mind craves excite- 
ment. It is the very vital air of the soul, as essential 
to it as motion is to the health of the body. If this 
desire cannot be gratified by innocent means, means 
of gratification will be devised which are not inno- 
cent. Of these means gambling is one of the most po- 
tent, and pernicious ; and a means as popular among the 
slaves as among the masters. It ought to be observ- 
ed however with respect both to this vice and to that 
of drunkenness, that both of them prevail to a much 
less extent among the slaves than with the free, be- 
cause the opportunities, means, and facility for these 
kinds of indulgences which the slaves possess, are far 
inferior to those possessed by the free. 

It is proper also to observe that the five great de- 
fects of character and conduct common as we have 
seen to the privileged and the unprivileged classes 
at the south, all exhibit themselves among the free, 
in a form more aggravated, and more disgusting — 
14* 



162 DESPOTISlrf 

at all events in a form far more pregnant with mis- 
chief than among the slaves. Slavery it Avould seem 
is but the foster-mother of vice ; tyranny is the real 
parent, — for the privileged class at the south have 
not yet reached that point of refinement indicated by 
Burke, at which vice by losing all its grossness loses 
half its evil. 

The ferocity of the slaves is a mild thing compared 
with the ferocity of the masters. It is rare to hear of a 
slave murdered by a slave, while the murder of white 
men by white men, is an every day occurrence. 
The instrument of vengeance which the slave most 
commonly employs, is his fist, or at most a club. The 
master uses pistols, dirks, knives, and double barrel- 
led guns. With all the bad reputation of Spain and 
Italy, assassinations were never a quarter so common 
in those countries as they now are in the south-western 
states of the American Union. The chance or rather 
I might say, the probability of dying a violent death 
is far greater in the states of Mississippi and Arkansas, 
than in any other part of the known world, not even 
Texas excepted. 

Idleness we must consider, presents itself to the 
slaves under the aspect of a pure good. In them it 
cannot be regarded as a vice. Is it a crime to evade 
as far as possible, the violence of robbery/ 

The privileged class on the contrary, are able to 
view idleness in its true light. It is not only the 
cause, and to the privileged class perceptibly the 
cause of all those evils traced to it above, but the love 
of idleness is in fact, the real foundation of slavery. 
The masters wish to enjoy without working ; to reap 
where they have not sowed, to gather where they 
have not strawed. This is the whole secret of the 
social system of the south. This unjust desire, which 
in the nature of things never can be fully gratified — 
for the enjoyment thus obtained is poisoned and cor- 
rupted by a certain secret inherent flavor of bitter- 
ness — 



IN AMERICA. 163 

— Medio de fonte leporum, 
Surgit amari aliqui J, quod in ipsis floribus angat, — 

this unjust desire to possess without labor, may be 
looked upon as the fruitful source of all the evils which 
the system of slavery involves. Under such circum- 
stances, idleness ceases to be merely a vice, it becomes 
a crime, and a crime too of the very blackest die, for 
it is the immediate cause of all kinds of crimes which 
men have agreed most to stigmatize, and those crimes 
too not perpetrated one by one, and in defiance of law, 
but perpetrated wholesale and systematically, not by 
individual upon individual, but by one half the com- 
munity upon the other half, and that too with the 
sanction of legislatures and tribunals. 

As regards improvidence, drunkenness and gam- 
bling, on the part of the slaves they are comparatively 
venal offences. The harm they can do is limited, and 
is confined almost entirely to the person of the offen- 
der himself. There is no danger that by giving way 
to them, he will precipitate a whole family into pov- 
erty and distress. There is no danger that his ex- 
ample will have a pernicious influence upon society 
at large. What is the example of a slave? Nor is 
there any likelihood that by giving way to these 
temptations he may render useless gifts which prop- 
erly exercised might have redounded to the benefit of 
the community. The only talent proper to a slave is the 
talent of handling a hoe. With him, these vices ter- 
minate for the most part in themselves. The seconda- 
r}'' evils which they produce are comparatively speak- 
ing, inconsiderable. Among the privileged class these 
indulgences give rise to a train of secondary evils of 
which the mere catalogue would fill a volume ; evils, 
which instead of confining themselves to the person 
of the offender, overflow, spread abroad, sweep away 
whole families, and inundate society. No language 
is too strong to describe the dangerous and fatal char- 
acter, which when practised by the privileged class, 
these vices assume. 



164 DESPOTISM 



SECTION III. 

Points of diversity in the character of the privileged 
and the unprivileged classes. 

1. Courage is one of those chivalrous virtues much 
boasted of among the freemen of the south. They 
are brave beyond question. All freemen are so. 
Courage is a virtue which always exists in the great- 
est perfection among freemen, because among freemen, 
it is most esteemed and most cultivated. Courage is 
essential to the maintenance of liberty. When it 
happens that freemen are also tyrants, courage is cul- 
tivated and fostered for the additional reason that it 
is essential also to the maintenance of tyranny. 
What importance is attached to this virtue at the south, 
may be conjectured from the braggadocio spirit, which 
so universally prevails there. Listen to southern 
conversation, or read the southern newspapers, and 
one would s.uppose that every mother's son of the free 
population, was an Orlando Furioso, or a Richard 
Cimirde Lion at the least. What wonder if courage 
abound where it is so highly esteemed and so greatly 
encouraged. 

The slaves, on the other hand, are cowards. A brave 
man may be found among them here or there, but 
cowardice is their general characteristic. If it were 
not so, the system of slavery would be very short liv- 
ed. To organize a successful insurrection, something 
more than mere courage is no doubt necessary. But 
courage alone is sufficient to produce a series of un- 
successful insurrections, and however individually un- 
successful ; a series of insurrections would shortly ren- 
der the masters' empire not worth preserving. If the 
slaves are cowards, it is a vice to which they have 
been diligently trained up from their earliest childhood. 
Were a tenth part of the pains bestowed to make 
them brave, which are taken to render them otherwise, 
they would be as courageous as their masters. The 



IN AMERICA. 165 

boldest heart very soon becomes siibdned, when every 
indication of spirit, every disposition to stand at bay 
is shortly visited by the whip, irons, or a prison, 

2. The Chastity of their women is another chivalrous 
virtue, much boasted of by the freemen of the south. 
The southern people have reason to be proud of their 
women. From the most disgusting vices of the men, 
they are, as we have mentioned already, in a great 
measure free, and such active virtue as is to be found 
at the south, at least the larger portion of it, is to be 
looked for among the female sex. 

If however the women have escaped to a certain ex- 
tent, the blighting influences of tyranny it is because 
they are sedulously shielded from its worst effects. 

Chastity like courage is to a great extent, an artifi- 
cial virtue, the existence of which principally depends 
upon education and public opinion. Both education 
and public opinion are stretched to their utmost influ- 
ence to preserve the chastity of the southern women, 
v/hile the free and more luxurious indulgence which 
the men find elsewhere, causes the seduction of free 
women to be a thing seldom attempted. 

Among the slaves, a woman, apart from mere natu- 
ral bashfulness, has no inducement to be chaste ; she 
has many inducements the other way. Her person 
is her only means of purchasing favors, indulgences, 
presents. To be the favorite of the master or one of 
his sons, of the overseer, or even of a driver, is an ob- 
ject of desire, and a situation of dignity. It is as much 
esteemed among the slaves, as an advantageous mar- 
riage would be, among the free. So far from involv- 
ing disgrace, it confers honor. Besides, where mar- 
riage is only a temporary contract, dissolvable at any 
time, not by the Avill of the parties alone, but at the 
caprice and pleasure of the masters, what room is 
there for any such virtue as chastity 7 Chastity con- 
sists in keeping the sexual appetite under a close re- 
straint except when its indulgence is sanctioned by 
marriage. But among slaves every casual union, 
though but for a day, is a marriage. To persons so 



166 DESPOTISM 

situated, we cannot justly apply ideas founded upon 
totally different circumstances. If we choose how- 
ever to understand by chastity the restriction of one's 
self to a single partner, chastity is very far from being 
so rare a virtue among the women of the unprivileg- 
ed class as is often asserted, and generally supposed. 
Though the union may be dissolved in a moment, 
at the slightest caprice of the parties, such separations 
are much more rare than might be imagined. More 
husbands and wives among the slaves are separated 
by the hammer of the auctioneer, than by the united 
influence of infidelity, disgust, or the desire of change. 

3. Fraud, falsehood, and dishonesty are represent- 
ed by the masters, as distinguishing traits in the cha- 
racter of the unprivileged class. This charge is un- 
founded. It has been shown already, that as between 
master and slave, from the very nature of that rela- 
tion, mutual confidence, trust and reliance, are out of 
the question. To deceive his master is almost the 
only means of self-defence in the power of the slave. 
What ground of mutual confidence is it possible to es- 
tablish between the robber and the robbed? To hold 
those promises binding which are extorted by force, 
to maintain that one is obliged to keep faith with a 
plunderer, is to surrender up, to the hands of violence, 
through the influence of a weak and cruel superstition, 
or a piece of miserable and empty sophistry, not the 
body only, but the soul ; not only actions, but the will ; 
the future as well as the present ; — it is to strip weak- 
ness and suffering of their last defence, and to give 
omnipotence to tyranny. 

In their transactions with each other the members 
of the unprivileged class at tlie south, are by no means 
deficient in the great and necessary virtues of truth, 
honesty and fidelity. The difliculty of inducing them 
to betray each other is proverbial, and is a matter 
of grevious complaint among masters and overseers. 
There are among the slaves, as among all bodies of 
men, some who set up honesty for sale, and who be- 
come instruments of tyranny in the hands of the pri- 



IN AMERICA. 167 

vileged class. There are others shrewd and slippery, 
upon whom no dependence whatever can be placed, 
even by their friends and relations. Characters of this 
sort, are quite as common among the privileged order. 
Indeed more so. There has been already mentioned 
that great class of professional gamblers, whose sole 
business it is to prey upon the community, to inveigle 
the unwary, and entrap the ignorant. There is no 
such class among the slaves. There is still another 
great class among the privileged order, who live al- 
most wholly upon the plunder of their richer neigh- 
bors, the receivers, namely, of stolen goods, the keep- 
ers of the petty trading stores, scattered throughout 
the south. They take in the corn, cotton and rice 
stolen by the slaves, and give in exchange whisky 
and other luxuries. This class of traders is very 
large. The severest laws have been enacted to 
suppress them, but without success. Lynch law is 
now and then administered upon them in all its sever- 
ity, but the nuisance cannot be abated. These men, 
compared with the slaves, are wholly without excuse. 
They live by constant violations of laws, by constant 
breaches of a social compact to which they have them- 
selves assented. This is a case in which the receiver, 
even in a legal point of view, is a thousand times 
worse than the thief Yet to speak within bounds, 
for every five or six acts of theft, (or what is called 
so,) conimitted on the part of slaves, there is at least 
one act of reception committed on the part of some 
freeman. We may therefore consider it to be reduced 
to an arithmetical demonstration, that so far as relates 
to violations of property, the offences of the free are 
greater than those of the slaves. To this conclusion 
we must come, even without taking into account the 
appalling fact that the entire existence of a large part 
of the privileged class is but one constant, steady vio- 
lation of all those principles upon which the very idea 
of property depends, and upon which the virtues of 
truth, honesty, justice and fidelity must rest for their 
only sure support. We may apply to the southern 



168 DESPOTISM IN AMERICA. 

slave-holders, a^'e?^ c^'e^jori^ of Talleyrand's. A certain 
person was complaining that every body consider- 
ed him a worthless, infamous fellow, yet said the 
complainant, I do not know why, for I have never 
committed but one fault in my life. " Ah !" said 
Talleyrand, "but when will that one fault be end- 
ed?" 

To those accustomed to look only at the outside of 
things, the results to which this chapter has brought 
us, will no doubt seem strange. It is impossible, they 
will say, that men whose circumstances are so contra- 
dictory, and whose whole appearance is so different, 
can after all, be so much alike. Such readers will do 
well to call to mind the hues of Shakspeare, — 

Through tatter'd clothes small vices do appear ; 
Robes and furr'd gowns, hide all. Plate sin with gold, 
And the strong lance of justice hurtless breaks 
Arm it in rags, a pigmy's straw doth pierce it. 

That gold however, with which the system of south- 
ern slavery is plated, is not the true metal. 'Tis but a 
fairy, shadowy, imaginary gold which cannot cross the 
running waters of truth, without being changed back 
again to its original worthlcssness. 



CONCLUSION. 



The slave-holding system had been introduced into 
the southern states of the Union, and domesticated 
there for many years, before the attention of any body 
was much attracted towards its evils consequences. It 
had spread even to the north, and of the thirteen provin- 
ces which first confederated to form the United States 
of America, there was not one, in which slavery did 
not exist at the time of the imion, to a greater or less 
extent. 

For a considerable period however, prior to the re- 
volutionary war, the people of Virginia, — that state 
in which the system of slavery had originated, and 
whence it had spread south and north, became aware 
of its evil effects, at least to a certain degree, and grew 
exceedingly urgent with the mother country to put an 
end to the African slave trade, or at all events to the 
importation of slaves into Virginia. This boon was 
denied, through the influence w^iih the government 
at home, of those British merchants engaged in the 
African trade; and this refusal is specially set forth 
in the Declaration of Independence, as one of those 
grievances which justified the Revolution, and the 
civil war by which it was attended. 

The revolution led to a general discussion as to the 
nature of government, and the foundations of civil 
society; and gave an almost universal currency to a 
metaphysical theory of human rights, fully stated in 
the Declaration of Independence and elsewhere. This 
theory, though it is not a true one, and has led, and 
always will lead to great errors and mistakes, if logic- 
15 



170 DESPOTISM '; 

ally carried out, — is nevertheless a noble and a glo- 
rious theory, and the cause of humanity has been not 
a little indebted to it. The axioms of this metaphysi- 
cal theory of rights, — which remains to this da^'-, the 
generally received doctrine throughout the United 
States, — are at total variance with the whole system 
of slavery, and in a very short time after those max- 
ims began to prevail, they came into conflict with it. 

In those states in which the slave-holding interest 
was weak, to wit, in Massachusetts, New-Hanrpshire, 
Rhode Island., Coimecticiii, New- York, New-Jersey and 
Pennsylvania, the metaphysical theory of human 
rights triumphed, sooner or later, over the slave sys- 
tem, and slavery was abolished in all those states. 
Being abolished however not upon a full, clear, sound 
and philosophical view of the matter, but merely upon 
certain points of metaphysics, no proper means were 
taken to ensiu'e to tiie enfranchised class the practical 
enjoyment of the rights bestowed upon them ; and 
they remam to this day, a degraded caste, subject in 
every one of those states, to legal disabilities greater 
or less, and to social disabilities without number. 

In the states farther south, the matter worked dif- 
ferently according to the different situation of those 
states. In Delaware, Maryland,, Virginia and North 
Carolina, the evil effects of the slave-holding system, 
even in its economical operation, had become very 
apparent. This was an argument easily felt and 
understood ; for it is a fact too true, that most men 
feel and reason best through their pockets. Accord- 
ingly in these four states, the metaphysical theory of 
human rights made a goodly struggle with the system 
of slavery. All the great men of those states, at ihat 
time, Washington, Jefferson, Henry, in fact every citi- 
zen who attained to any eminence during the revo- 
lutionary struggle, was in favor of emancipation. The 
reason given by Washington for not at once emanci- 
pating his slaves, was, that emancipation, in order to 
be effectual for the public good and the benefit of the 
emancipated, ought to be universal, brought about by 



IN AMERICA. 171 

a general law, — and for such a law he always pro- 
fessed himself ready and desirous lo go. This argu- 
ment in favor of retaining one's slaves, did not how- 
ever prevail with the more ardent and enthusiastic, 
and even with the most sober and discreet, including 
Washington himself, when they came to sit down 
calmly and make their wills, it seemed to lose the 
greater part of its force. Thus it happened that al- 
though no attempt was made to obtain any general 
law of emancipation, — ignorance, selfishness and pre- 
judice being too prevalent, — it nevertheless came to 
pass that by private manumission, the number of the 
emancipated began rapidly to increase. 

In South Carolina and Georgia the state of public 
opinion was different. Slave labor in those states 
was still very valuable, and their leading men, with a 
few honorable exceptions, were great sticklers for slav- 
ery and the slave trade. Indeed they absolutely refus- 
ed to become parties to the Federal Constitution, imless 
the Federal Government would renounce the right to 
prohibit the foreign slave trade, prior to 1808. 

As regards the growing empire of the north-western 
states, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan and Wiscon- 
sin, they owe an eternal debt of gratitude to Thomas 
Jefferson, who was the original author of that celebrat- 
ed section of the ordinance, of 1787, by which the in- 
troduction of slavery into the territory north-west of the 
Ohio, is forever prohibited. That ordinance, at the time 
of its passage, embraced all the unsettled territory be- 
longiug to the United States. 

Vermont, formed out of lands the possession of which 
had been disputed between New- York and New- 
Hampshire, and Maine, a more modern offset from 
the vigorous stem of Massachusetts — were free states 
from the beginning. Kentucky and Tennessee, set off 
from Virginia and North Carolma, inherited from their 
mother states, the infection of slavery. 

Meanwhile the struggle between the metaphysical 
theory of human rights, and the slave-holding system, 
still went on in Vn-ginia, Maryland and North Caro- 



172 DESPOTISM 

lina. But by degrees the spirit of despotism gained 
the ascendency ; and fearful lest individual humanity 
should accomplish that emancipation by private be- 
neficence, which the Legislatures refused to bring 
about by any general law, the force of public opinion, 
as well as of legislation, was brought so to bear, as in 
a great measvn-e to put an end to voluntary emancipa- 
tion. The existing regulations upon that subject, in 
the several slave states of the union, have been stated 
in a previous chapter. So jealous has the slave-holding 
spirit of the south become, that in those constitutions, 
which have been latest remodeled, the Legislatures 
are expressly deprived of the power of passing any 
general act of emancipation. 

It may be stated as a general fact, to which only 
some slight exceptions occur, that ever since the con- 
clusion of the revolutionary war, the slave-holding 
spirit of the south has been growing more violent, bit- 
ter and exclusive. This fact is easily explained. A 
careful comparison of opinions and prices current, will 
prove beyond the shadow of a doubt, that the attach- 
ment of the southern people to the institution of slavery, 
has always been most precisely graduated by the mar- 
ket value of slaves ; — a circumstance well worthy of 
observation, because it goes very far to show, that 
after all, the question of slavery at the south, is 
neither more nor less than a mere question of money, 
and a question therefore, which, money, after all, may 
be able to settle. 

During tlie revolutionary war the value of slave 
property in Virginia and the neighboring states, sunk 
to a very low ebb ; and the people at that time, ex- 
hibited a certain disposition towards emancipation. 
When the war of the French Revolution had created 
a vast foreign demand for American agricultural pro- 
duce, the value of slaves rose, and the disposition to 
emancipate, sunk in proportion. 

Thus it happened that when in the year 1803, the 
territory now comprised in the states of Alabama and 
Mississippi was obtained by the United States, from 



IN AMERICA, 173 

the state of Georgia, by purchase, it was no longer 
possible to make that section of the ordinance of 1787 
which secured perpetual freedom to the states north- 
west of the Ohio, applicable to this newly acquired 
territory. Indeed this territory by an express article 
of the compact of cession, was excluded from the oper- 
ation of that section of the ordinance of 1787, though 
all the other sections were extended to it. In this way, 
Alabama and Mississippi became slave-holding states, 
and were admitted as such into the union. 

Nor did Mr. Jefferson, when by his famous treaty 
with France, he doubted the geographical extent of 
his country, and acquired the vast territory of Lou- 
isiana, deem it prudent to bring forward any ordi- 
nance for the perpetuation of freedom through those 
vast regions. The state of Louisiana was admitted 
into the union, just before the commencement of the 
war of 1812, a period of great pohtical excitement upon 
other topics, which precluded, as is probable, any dis- 
cussion of the question of slavery at that time. 

When however, in 1819, the territory of Missouri ap- 
phed for admission into the union, the question whether 
slavery was to be allowed to spread unchecked over 
the vast regions of the west, came fairly up for dis- 
cussion. 

In the decision of the Missouri question, the friends 
of freedom, have been generally represented as having 
sustained a severe defeat. This representation how- 
ever does not seem to be entirely correct. Slave-hold- 
ers with their slaves had been allowed to settle in 
Missouri, and they had formed a state constitution, by 
virtue of which slavery was tolerated. Under these 
circumstances it was not easy to refuse the State ad- 
mission into the union, nor was it easy to dictate what 
kind of a constitution it should have. That contro- 
versy was finally settled by a compromise, according 
to which it was agreed, that slavery should be allowed 
in Missouri and Arkansas, into which territories it 
had been already introduced, but that throughout the 
whole remaining portions of the Louisiana territory, 
15=^ 



174 DESPOTISM 

it should be forever prohibited. By virtue of this 
compromise, the new territory of loiva will presently 
take its place among the free states. 

It was just about the time of the Missouri contro- 
versy that the territory of Florida, was ceded to the 
United States by Spain. This territory had at that 
time some small Spanish settlements, and the slave- 
holding system had existed in it for some two centu- 
ries. An ineffectual attempt was made to prohibit 
the introduction of new slaves into the Territory. But 
the friends of freedom had been discouraged by the 
result of the Missouri controversy, and the attempt 
proved unsuccessful. Florida will therefore come 
into the union a slave state. 

Upon this question of slavery the United States may 
be classed as follows; 1st. Free States^ viz, Maine, 
New-Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecti- 
cut, Rhode Island, New-York, New-Jersey, Pennsyl- 
vania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin and 
Iowa, fifteen states ; 2nd, slave states, viz. Delaware, 
Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, 
Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, 
Arkansas, Missouri, Tennessee, and Kentucky, four- 
teen states. Whole number of states, txcenty-imie. It 
is hardly probable that any addition will be made to 
that number for many years to come. 

It was well settled in the first Congress which as- 
sembled under the Federal Constitution, that the gov- 
ernment of the union possesses no power to abolish or 
to modify, the institution of slavery, within the limits 
of any of the states. This decision is generally as- 
sented to, and has never yet been seriously called in 
question. 

It is maintained however at the north, and even 
at the south it is generally conceded, that the Federal 
Government does possess the power to abolish slavery 
in the Federal District of Columbia, and the power 
also to abolish the domestic slave-trade, as between 
the different states, that is to say, to prohibit the 
transportation of slaves from one state to another for 
the purpose of sale. 



IN AMERICA. 175 

It is Upon these points, that the friends of liberty in 
the United States have of late concentrated their po- 
litical efforts, and it is to be hoped that they will 
steadily persevere till both these points are carried. 

During the period that elapsed from the settle- 
ment of the Missouri controversy down to the year 
1833, the value of slave property having greatly di- 
minished especially in the more northern of the 
slave-holding states, and the Southampton insurrec- 
tion having attracted pnblic attention to the dangers 
of slavery, a considerable disposition was at one time 
exhibited, especially in Virginia, to do something for 
the emancipation of the slaves. The plan however 
brought forward at that time, connected as it was 
with the colonization scheme, of which fiu'thcr men- 
tion will presently be made, failed to be adopted, and 
has since been generally abandoned even by its warm- 
est advocates. 

Since that time, the tide has set decidedly the other 
way. The spirit of despotism has grown more obsti- 
nate and violent, and a sect has arisen at the south, 
which boldly maintains that the system of slavery 
ought to be perpetual, because it furnishes the only 
solid foundation for a free repnblican government ! At 
the head of this new school of politics, stand Mr. Cal- 
houn and his friend and first disciple, Mr. McDuffie. 

Some superficial, or prejudiced observers, have as- 
cribed the late exacerbation of slave-holding ferocity, 
to the reaction produced by the proceedings of those 
people in tbe northern states, known as abolitionists. 
The true reason is to be found in the excessive prices 
of the slave-market for the few years past, caused by 
the high price of cotton. As that great staple of slave 
production has again settled down to a price barely 
sufficient to pay the cost of producing it, the value of 
slaves will fall also ; and as that value falls, it may 
be hoped and expected, that the south will grow more 
soft-hearfed, rational, and humane. 

Notwithstanding the bold paradoxes mentioned 
above, as having been recently advanced by Mr. Cal- 



176 DESPOTISM 

houn and his disciples, touching the advantages and 
the permanancy of the slave-holding system, it still 
remains a pretty universal opinion, at the south as 
well as at the north, that slavery is a bad thing, and 
that sooner or later, it must be and will be abolished. 

That slavery is a bad thing, the preceding pages have 
perhaps gone far to prove ; that it will sooner or later 
be abolished, may be reasonably concluded from the 
universal past experience of the world in similar cases. 
That same sort of slavery which disgraces and dam- 
nifies the United States, existed half a century ago 
throughout the whole extent of the American conti- 
nent. In all the independent states, late Spanish 
American colonies, it has been totally abolished 
through the influence of political revolutions. In 
Hayti, the slaves have vindicated their liberties, with 
their own strong hand. In Jamaica and the other 
British West Indies, those subjected to servitude have 
obtained emancipation through the bounty of the Eng- 
lish people, a piece of philanthropy on a larger scale, 
than the v/orld's history had before that time afforded. 
The same causes which have carried emancipation 
thus far, will sooner or later extend it to Brazil, the 
French West Indies, the Spanish West Indies, and the 
United States of America. 

It is obvious that all the means whereby an eman- 
cipation of the slaves in the United States can be 
brought about, may be classed under one of these two 
heads, 1st, force, 2nd, the consent of the masters. 

I. Force. If the system of slavery in the United 
States be not first extinguished by some peaceable 
means, it will sooner or later, come to a forcible ter- 
mination. 

To those who have read the foregoing pages it must 
be obvious, that any unassisted insurrection on the 
part of the slaves alone, is very unlikely ever to be 
successful. But nevertheless there are still three 
ways in which the slave-holding system may be forci- 
bly terminated. 

1. Foreign wars. Should the United States be- 



IN AMERICA. 177 

come involved in a foreign war with Great Britain, 
France, or any other first rate power, the slave-liold- 
ers would have every thing to apprehend from a foreign 
invasion accompanied as it would be, by a proclama- 
tion of freedom to the slaves, at the announcement of 
which all the civilized nations of the world would 
shout Amen ! In such a contest the sympathies of all 
mankind would be against us, and what is worse, our 
own better feelings too. 

That such a project of invasion was planned dur- 
ing our last war with Great Britain has iDeen already 
mentioned. The reasons which then prevented its 
execution, exist no longer. It is to be observed too that 
the recent improvements in steam navigation, have 
rendered the Atlantic a much less protective barrier 
than once it was. These things are not wholly over- 
looked by the southern people. The excessive flutter- 
ing with which our late difficulties with France about 
the treaty of indemnity, and our present difficulties 
with Great Britain touching the boundary question, 
were and are regarded at the south, are a sufficient 
proof what peculiar terrors the idea of a foreign war 
has, for that part of our country. 

2nd. A (lis sol nil 071 of the Union. A dissolution of 
the Union, would almost certainly be followed by a 
war between the separated states. This subject has 
been already treated in the introduction. Such a war 
could not fail to prove fatal to the slave system at the 
south. 

3d. Political disturbances and civil wa?- in the slave 
states theviselves. Such events are perhaps much 
nearer and more threatening, than most people ima- 
gine. Hitherto that portion of the free population, 
impoverished and degraded by the influence of the 
slave system, has found an open asylum by emigration 
to the new states. That asylum is fast closing up. 
Already the poisonous influence of slavery is almost 
in as full operation in the new states as in the old. 
In some of the new states its operation is even more 
obvious and more terrible than in the old ones. The 



178 DESPOTISM 

old slave states were originally all of them free com- 
munities, inhabited wholly, or almost wholly, by free 
citizens. It has thus happened that there still remains to 
a greater or less degree, in all those states, a certain rel- 
ish and tincture of freedom, which not all the deleteri- 
ous influences of slavery, have yet been able wholly to 
eradicate. )Some ideas still prevail there, and exercise 
a certain degree of influence, which are wholly averse 
to the existing state of things, — ideas derived from the 
days of ancient freedom and equality. These same 
ideas have been transplanted into Kentucky and Ten- 
nessee, and prevail there to the greater extent on ac- 
count of the smaller proportion of slaves to be found 
in those states. 

Mississippi on the other hand, and the same is true 
to a certain extent of Alabama and Louisiana, may 
be regarded as states which have been founded, and 
have grown up, under almost the sole influence of the 
slave-holding system. Slavery appears there in all 
its horrors, totally stript of that patriarchal character 
with which it is sometimes more or less invested in 
some of the older states. Almost every planter is a 
slave-trader, as well as a slave-holder, and the slaves 
driven in gangs from Maryland and Virginia, are sub- 
jected to new severities, compelled to harder labors, and 
under new and unfamiliar masters, wholly deprived of 
all those privileges, presents and holidays, to which at 
home they had established a sort of prescriptive right. 

The masters too, emigrating from the older states, 
and for the most part young men, leave behind them 
all those prejudices, and remnant influences of free- 
dom, which still prevail at home, and all restraint 
thrown ofl", act out the character of slave-masters to 
the full pitch. Who does not know the terrible condi- 
tion of society m those states, in which, it may justly 
be said, that there is no tolerable security either for 
property or life. 

In all the southern states, and most of all in those 
states in which the evils of slavery have reached the 
highest pitch, there are great bodies of desperate men, 



IN AMERICA. 



179 



belonging to the privileged class, without property, or 
any other stake in the institutions of society, from 
whom there is hardly any danger that may not be 
reasonably apprehended. Such are those bands of 
gamblers of whom an account has been given, and 
who can hardly be expected to keep any terms with a 
community, which keeps no terms with them. These 
bodies of destitute and desperate men, are rapidly in- 
creasing, since the southern states throughout their 
whole extent are beginning to be exposed to the full 
force of those causes, by which the privileged class in 
every slave-holding comnumity, is necessarily divided 
into two distinct portions, — a few rich, and many poor. 

That these desperadoes should sooner or later plan, 
and carry out a political revolution of which the un- 
privileged class would be the instruments, and the few 
rich the victims, is by no means improbable. Indeed 
if we can put reliance upon the stories told in south- 
ern newspapers, such schemes and conspiracies have 
been already formed. There are many circumstances 
which v/ould lead to the conclusion, that every year 
adds to the likelihood of such attempts, and to the 
probability of their success. Any such enterprise, if 
successfully carried out, or if only partially successful, 
would of course involve the overthrow of the system 
of slavery. 

If the system of slavery in the southern states 
should be brought to an end by any of these forcible 
means, however beneficial the ultimate result might 
be, the immediate consequences must of necessity be 
excessively disastrous ; and roots of bitterness in such 
a struggle, would be left deeply planted, to spring up 
and bear fruits centuries afterwards. 

Are these not then peaceable means, means of con- 
sent, whereby this disorder of the body social and 
politic, may more easily, more safely, and more 
pleasurably be eradicated 7 Is it not possible to devise 
a method, by which the extinction of slavery, instead 
of being brought about by the conflict of all the bad 
passions of human nature, in fact by that very operation 



180 DESPOTISM 

in which slavery first had its origin, to wit, by war, — 
may on the contrary, be charmed, as it were, out of life 
and being, by the potent wand of knowledge and 
humanity ? 

Glorious idea ! — that this evil of slavery, the great- 
est evil to which human society is subject, because it 
consists in fact, of a combination of all possible social 
evils, — may yet be made the occasion for an exercise 
of virtue and of wisdom such as the annals of the 
world have not yet furnished an example of ! If the 
American States, after the close of the eight year's war, 
by means of which they secured their emancipation from 
the yoke of the mother country, sat down calmly and 
peaceably to make a constitution for themselves con- 
formable to the prevailing theory of human rights, a 
thing which no nation had ever done before, — why not 
too, upon this matter of slavery, act also, in a calm 
and peaceful way, and again do, by consent, a great 
thing which, as in the other case, has been hitherto 
accomplished in most other countries, only by force? 

Two methods of consent, have been already brought 
before the public, for the emancipation of the slaves. 
Each of these methods, in its practical application, is 
capable of being indefinitely modified ; but it would 
seem that all possible schemes of emancipation, must 
conform in their general principles, to one or the other 
of these two proposals. The one may be distinguished 
as the Colonization scheme ; the other, as the scheme 
of Abolition. 

1st. The Colonizatioji scheme. This scheme is found- 
ed upon existing prejudices, and is therefore w^^l cal- 
culated to catch the fancy of superficial thinkers. It 
takes for granted, that there is a natural incompatibil- 
ity between the two races, Avhich renders it impossi- 
ble, or at least, highly inconvenient for them to live to- 
gether, in any other relation than as masters and slaves. 
This idea is not peculiar to the United States, nor is it 
confined to the natiu-al relation of the English and 
African races. Whenever the circumstances of the 
population have been similar, the same ideas have 



IN AMERICA. 181 

been current. Humbold in his Essay on New Spain, 
speaking of the condition of the aboriginal inhabitants 
of Mexico, at the beginning of the present century 
has the following passage. " The lawyers who detes» 
innovation, and the Creole proprietors who frequently 
find their interest in keeping the cultivator in degra- 
dation and misery, maintain that we must not inter- 
fere with the natives because on granting them more 
liberty, the whites would have every thing to fear 
from the vindictive spirit and arrogance of the Indian 
race. The language is always the same, whenever it 
is proposed to allow the peasant to participate in the 
rights of a freeman and a citizen. I have heard the 
same arguments repeated in Mexico, Peru, and the 
kingdom of New Grenada, which in several parts of 
Germany, Poland, Livonia and Prussia, are opposed 
to the abolition of slavery among the peasants." At 
the time this passage was written, the Indian race 
throughout Spanish America, was in a condition, not 
greatly superior in point either of law or fact, to the 
existing condition of American slaves. Since that 
time Indians have been emancipated, and raised to an 
equality, in civil and political rights, with their Creole 
neighbors. Those countries have since been much 
distracted by civil wars, but in no single instance has 
there occurred a war of races. All these wars have 
grown out of the quarrels of the Creoles among them- 
selves. 

The colonization scheme, founded upon this idea of 
the incompatibility of the races, proposes to abolish 
slavery by transporting all the slaves to some distant 
country, — the coast of Africa is generally proposed — 
thus leaving the remainder of the population, white 
and free. 

That this scheme is totally impracticable, and that 
any attempt to carry it into execution must be attend- 
ed by the most fatal consequences to the economical 
prosperity of the south, has been abundantly shown, 
both by the enemies and the friends of emancipation, by 



182 DESPOTISM 

Professor Dew of William and Mary College on the 
one hand, and by Thomas Jefferson on the other. 

The value of land and of all other property at the 
south as well as elsewhere, is dependent to a great 
extent upon the density of the population. The scheme 
for shipping off all the laboring hands of the south, is 
a scheme for reducing all those states to a condition of 
miserable poverty. 

[t is indeed proposed by the defenders of the colo- 
nization scheme, that this process of transportation 
shall be exceedingly gradual, and that as fast as the col- 
ored laborers are shipped off, white laborers shall flow 
in to supply their places. If white laborers would 
flow in, even then the evils of slavery would be in- 
definitely protracted; and during the long period in 
which the transportation was going on, the state sub- 
jected to its operation, would be kept at best, in a 
condition perfectly stationary. But in point of fact 
white laborers would not flow in. If it be desired to 
rear up at the south, a system of free industry, the 
system of slave labor must first be razed to its found- 
ations. It is utterly out of the question to be pulling 
away the slave system at the bottom, and at the 
same time to be building up the free system at the top. 

It has indeed been so clearly demonstrated, that this 
colonization scheme can never accomplish the eman- 
cipation of the slaves, that even in the minds of its 
most ardent supporters, it has dwindled down into lit- 
tle better than a means of expatriating the free colored 
population. In the slave states, this part of the pop- 
ulation is regarded as a nuisance, and it is generally 
thought that the colonization society may be usefully 
employed as a means of abating that nuisance. Its 
merits, in that respect, this is not the place to discuss. 

2nd. The Abolition Scheme. This scheme pro- 
poses the full emancipation of the whole unprivileged 
class, and their elevation by due degrees, to an entire 
participation in all the political rights of citizens. 
There has, it is true, been a vast deal of dispute about 
immediate and gradual emancipation; but among 



IN AMERICA. 



183 



those who are actually in favor of emancipation at 
all, any diflerences upon that point, might, it is prob- 
able, be easily reconciled. The greatest sticklers for 
the most gradual emancipation, are for the most part, 
those who are desirous of making emancipation so 
very gradual as to render it in fact, no emancipation 
at all, or at least to put it off to the last possible day. 

Those who are most afraid of revolutionary move- 
ments and sudden changes, if indeed they are really 
sincere in their avowed love of freedom, must at least 
admit the policy and the desirableness of a total repeal, 
throughout the slave-holding states, of all those laws 
by which voluntary emancipations on the part of the 
masters, are embarrassed or prohibited. In the present 
state of public feeling, such a change in the laws of 
the southern states, could not fail to be followed by 
very important consequences. 

Three objections are principally relied upon, by that 
portion of the southern people who profess to regard 
slavery as an evil, — that is to say by the great major- 
ity of the privileged class, — as standing in the way of 
the abolition scheme. 

1. It is objected that emancipation would not in fact 
improve the condition of the unprivileged class ; — and 
the degradation of the free colored people, — that is to 
say, of the emancipated slaves, at the north, — is refer- 
red to, as proof to the point. 

It must be confessed there is much plausibility in 
this objection. It is a sort of argumentum ad hom- 
inem^ which a northern man does not find it so easy to 
answer. It is to be hoped however that the efforts 
now making by the friends of freedom at the north, 
to elevate the condition of the colored people, and to 
render the gift of freedom valid and available, will 
shortly blunt the edge of this objection. 

2. The prejudices and false opinions, heretofore 
mentioned, as lying at the foundation of the coloniza- 
tion scheme, are brought forward, and urged with 
much vehemence and great apparent sincerity, as pre- 
senting an unsurmountable obstacle to tbe" abolition 



184 DESPOTISM 

proposal. It is alleged that there is such a natural re- 
pugnance and antipathy between the two races, that 
it is impossible for them to live together upon any 
terms of equality. That either one race or the other 
must rule, or one race or the other must be extermi- 
nated. 

Let us reply, that the whole tenor of human history, 
stained as it is by violence and blood, gives the lie 
direct to this narrow and cruel theory, the greatest 
libel upon human nature ever yet propounded. All 
the nations of Western Europe, the most civilized and 
enlightened communities in the world, have been 
formed by an intermixture of races so complicated 
that it is utterly impossible to trace it. Even that 
Saxon blood of which we boast, is far more Celtic than 
Teutonic, formed by the intermixture of two races, 
utterly diverse in their appearance, their institutions, 
their temper and their manners, who for centuries al- 
ternately reduced each other to slavery, and who are 
set down by all antiquaries and historians as being 
natural and irreconcilable enemies. 

He who reads the story of the human race with a 
calm, an impartial, a philosophic mind, will learn to 
rise above the prejudices, and passions, and narrow 
notions of those who have written it. He will learn 
to receive with proper distrust those libels, which un- 
der the name of histories, men have written of each 
other ; he will learn, before making up his mind, to 
examine deliberately, both sides of every controversy. 

The Slavonic tribes, in the days of ancient preju- 
dice, were denounced by their Teutonic neighbors as 
fit only for servitude; and the word slave is derived 
to our language from their name. Has not Koscuesko, 
have not die latter days of unhappy Poland shown, 
how undeserved was that reproach? 

With respect even to the African race, the history of 
America during the present century has done much to 
dissipate the blunders of ignorance and the prejudices 
of self conceit. Of all the new Republics, our neigh- 
bors, which have lately sprung up in the two Ameri- 



IN AMERICA. 185 

cas, not one is to be found, the government of which 
has been so stable, and on the whole so mild and just, 
as that of Hayti. Those who hold up Hayti, as a 
raw-head and bloody-bones to frighten us out of reason 
and humanity, are not perhaps aware that the eastern 
portion of that island, is principally inhabited by a 
white population, — the descendants of the first Span- 
iards who ever emigrated to America, — and that in 
the Haytian Congress, men of all colors, from pure 
white to pure black, meet upon terms of perfect equal- 
ity, and the best good fellowship. 

In all the Spanish American states, the African race 
enfranchised, and permitted to aid in the struggle for 
liberty, has contributed its fair proportion of civil and 
military talent to that great enterprise, and in several 
of those republics, the mixed race, sprung from the 
intermarriage of the Spaniards and the Africans, fur- 
nishes a large proportion of the most enterprising, 
trust-worthy, and respectable of the people. The 
British West Indies are about to give a new lesson 
upon this subject, the force of which, it will not be 
easy for prejudice itself to withstand. 

3. But it is objected thirdly and lastly, that the 
emancipation of the slaves, inasmuch as it will deprive 
their masters of a vast amount of property legally held 
under the constitution and laws of their country, would 
demand, on the part of the state governments, by 
whose authority alone the emancipation could take 
place, an amount of compensation wholly beyond their 
power to pay. 

Beyond all question, the emancipation of the slaves 
at the south, so far from diminishing the total value 
of southern property, would, if not immediately, yet 
certainly within a very short time, greatly enhance it. 
On the whole then, the pecuniary loss would be no- 
thing. It must be conceded however, that such a rev- 
olution of property could not take place, without very 
severe losses to particular individuals. Every change, 
however beneficial to society at large, is in the neces- 
sity of things, always attended with a loss, greater or 
16^ 



186 DESPOTISM IN AMERICA. 

less, to some individuals. This loss, considered merely 
in itself, is an evil. It is in fact a small evil which 
we are obliged to submit to, as the price of a greater 
good. It is the part however of a beneficent system 
of legislation, to reduce this price of evil, to the small- 
est possible limit. If indeed the problem of emancipa- 
tion can be reduced to a mere question of money, 
assuredly it is solved already. The resources of the 
slave-holding states, are no doubt small ; but the re- 
sources of the union are vast and ample ; and where 
is the northern citizen who would hesitate to strain 
those resources to the utmost, could he thereby com- 
mand the means of compounding a lotion, potent 
enough to wash out from his country's future, the 
fatal twin plague spots of servitude and despotism ? 



END. 



3477-2 



